Judge condemns “continued saga” of excessive family law costs

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Hodson: Bad application

A deputy district judge and leading family law solicitor has condemned what he called the “continued saga” of “excessive costs” charged by family lawyers.

DDJ Hodson, a visiting professor at the University of Law and author of textbooks on family law, said the married couple in the case before him had incurred legal costs of about £13,000 in a case involving interim maintenance of no more than £2,000.

He asked: “How can that ever be?”

In a preamble to his ruling, the judge said: “Throughout history, lawyers have had a bad reputation. Amongst the wide category of complaints might be nuances, fine points taken which lawyers call distinguishing but the public calls something completely different, long delays which rarely suit anyone but lawyers and high costs including disproportionate costs.

“It might be thought that in recent years, with far greater opportunity for bringing bad practices to light and far greater consumer awareness, there would have been wholesale changes.

“The profession now is very different to when I started decades ago and rightly so. We have far tighter professional rules, far more openness and transparency and far more information about costs.

“So why is it still in England and Wales family law, with which we are concerned, we have a continued saga of cases with disproportionate costs and applications which sadly do little to correct the reputation of these millennia?”

DDJ Hodson said “countless reported decisions” had condemned costs being incurred “unnecessarily or inappropriately”. He said he had written an article about them in 2022.

“I would like to report that the profession read the article and there was a wholesale cultural change. Alas not. The excessive costs cases have continued to be reported, including this year.”

Delivering judgment in DSD v MJW (Costs of mps) [2025] EWFC 119 (B), DDJ Hodson said the case involved an application by the wife for maintenance pending suit of £500 per month, opposed by the husband.

Given that the application was heard in April this year for a final financial remedy hearing in July 2025, DDJ Hodson said the total amount of maintenance involved was “only ever going to be three months duration namely £1,500, at most £2,000 with possible backdating”.

He said it was “incumbent upon lawyers and parties to find creative solutions in financial remedy work, both interim and final settlement”.

The judge went on: “In this case there is apparently over £700,000 sitting on solicitors’ deposit account, proceeds of sale of a property, awaiting adjudication in July.

“Why not propose that each party has £2,000 paid out or even a little more? This would have saved £13,000.”

He described it as a “bad application to make at this late stage in the case”, adding “ill feeling and greater animosity”.

“It failed in my assessment to satisfy the criteria required in law for the making of this sort of order. It was in any event thoroughly cost disproportionate.”

The wife’s lawyers would have better spent the time and money on preparing for the final hearing, the judge went on.

“I suspect her parents are appalled, or at least should be, because apparently it is their money. I have no idea if either or both have spent any time in commerce. But only rarely and exceptionally does one spend almost £9,000 to recover what might be at best £2,000 if the order were backdated.

“Outside the exceptional, which this isn’t, it makes no commercial sense whatsoever.”

DDJ Hodson dismissed the application. He added: “This family court will not entertain such cost disproportionate applications and thoroughly criticises this approach. It has done only ill for the reputation of the family courts and family lawyers.”