Insights

Thomas Higginbottom worked as a chef for eight years before swapping a culinary career for costs law. Now a director at Arc Costs, he also runs his own firm, Greener Costs, and recently completed ACLT’s Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification. I studied law at university and, intending to embark upon a career as a solicitor, completed […]

Owen Poole started out in costs law over 30 years ago, going on to work in both independent costs firms and in-house. A decade ago, he set up OP Costs Drafting and recently completed ACLT’s Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification. I began my career handling insurance claims before moving into personal injury and later, costs law. […]

Nick Northrop is a costs advocate and senior costs consultant at Carter Burnett. With three decades of experience in legal services, he’s not the typical student on the Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification. But as Nick explains, now was the right time to formalise a career built on deep, practical knowledge and a passion for development. […]

Jamie Bedford has completed his first term on the ACLT’s Cost Lawyer Professional Qualification. Currently freelancing as a consultant for Elite Law Solicitors (ELS), Jamie has incorporated his own company (trading since Spring 2024) in readiness for qualifying as a Costs Lawyer in early 2026. I inadvertently discovered my passion for law while studying a […]

Katarzyna Wronowska has worked for national firm Cost Law Services since 2019. She is in her first year of the ACLT’s Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification and hopes to be fully qualified by 2026 and eventually pursue her ambition of becoming a judge. I moved to the UK from Poland when I was 19 so I […]

Josh Browes has recently started a new costs role at national law firm, Partners in Costs. He is now in his second year on the ACLT’s Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification. My route into law has been far from traditional. I originally started my career in science, studying science and IT at college, before gaining a […]

Amna Aziz has recently joined national law firm, Partners in Costs, as a Legal Costs Negotiator. She is coming to the end of her first year of the ACLT’s Costs Lawyer Professional Qualification and hopes to be fully qualified by 2026. When I started my law degree at Huddersfield University in 2019, I was unclear […]

For anybody thinking about undertaking a professional qualification, I cannot recommend the ACLT Costs Lawyer Qualification highly enough. The course is a route to professional qualification with greater accessibility than some of the traditional methods of legal qualification as a solicitor or barrister. As the first member of my family to attend university, I left […]

What can you say about the profession since you joined? At the first conference I attended the room was full of tall people in suits (I would guess 90/95% male) which has been transformed into a more gender inclusive profession. I have during my career been a single mum, commuted across the M62 on a […]

Completing the ACL Training Course was a highly useful step in my career and the people I met helped give me a much wider view of costs law in the whole. I did not have a background in law, having joined the Irwin Mitchell Costs Management Team from a role in IT training through a […]

I had always had an interest in law but at eighteen years old, I was still undecided on what career path I wanted to take. Therefore, I chose to study History at university as this was something I had a passion in but would also offer a lot of transferable skills into whatever career I […]

I graduated in 2009 with BSc (Hons) Mathematics at Sheffield Hallam University and joined Irwin Mitchell in October 2010, initially working in the Accounts department. After spending some time working in the Purchase Ledger team, I decided I wanted to test myself in a different role. I noticed a couple of my colleagues in Accounts […]