Regulation 103 Legal aid granted after costs incurred
Where, after proceedings have been instituted in any court, a party becomes an assisted person in relation to those proceedings, the provisions of section 17(1) of the Act shall apply only to so much of the costs of the proceedings as are incurred while a certificate is in force.
Any solicitor who has acted on behalf of the assisted person in the proceedings to which a certificate relates before the date of the certificate, and any solicitor who has a lien on any documents necessary for the proceedings and who has delivered them up subject to his lien, may give notice of that fact to the appropriate area committee.
Subject to paragraph (4), if moneys are recovered for the assisted person, the Board shall pay to any solicitor who has given notice under paragraph (2) out of the sum so recovered the costs to which he would have been entitled following a solicitor and own client taxation.
In any case where the sums so recovered are insufficient to pay the solicitor’s costs in full in accordance with paragraph (3) and also to meet the sums paid out or payable out of the fund on the assisted person’s account, the sums recovered in the proceedings shall be divided between the fund and the solicitor in the same proportions as the solicitor’s costs and the cost to the fund bear to the aggregate of the two, and the first charge for the benefit of the Board imposed by virtue of section 16(6) of the Act on property recovered or preserved in the proceedings shall take effect accordingly.
In any case in which the amount of–
the costs payable to a solicitor under this regulation; or
the inter partes costs incurred during the period in which the certificate was in force,
have not been ascertained on taxation, they shall, for the purpose of this regulation, be assessed by the appropriate area committee and, where the committee makes an assessment under this regulation, it shall do so with a view to allowing, for the costs referred to in sub-paragraph (a) above, such costs as the solicitor would have been entitled to on a solicitor and own client taxation and, for the costs referred to in sub-paragraph (b) above, such costs as would have been allowed on a taxation on the standard basis.
For the purposes of this regulation, work done by a solicitor–
immediately prior to the issue of an emergency certificate, and
at a time when no application for an emergency certificate could be made because the appropriate area office was closed,
shall be deemed to be work done while such a certificate is in force if the solicitor applies for an emergency certificate at the first available opportunity and the application is granted.