Today marks the launch of our Legal Aid Costs Course rerun. Although this is the first time we are running it in this format, the process has taken five years. Initially, it started as an in-person conference and roadshow, but due to COVID-19, we adapted it to an online version.
Over the years, we have made adjustments to our Costs Conference to make it more accessible to fee earners with unpredictable workloads. We have also improved our training platform, and attendees will now receive two months of access to our content, which can be fitted around their workload.
Our expert team has curated the course content, which includes modules on Court of Protection, High Costs, Processing, and Legal Cashiering. The presenters are from our award-winning training team and Senior Costs Draftspeople. All attendees who have signed up can access this course.
Meet Our Presenters
David Smith
David has worked as a Costs Draftsman since starting as a trainee in 2001, developing a particular specialism in legal aid costs and especially family legal aid. He gradually started to become more involved with training and was responsible for creating the Training Programme at his previous company.
David has presented various seminars and workshops around the country for firms of solicitors looking at maximising legal aid costs and providing updates whenever new fee schemes are introduced. This has also included being a guest speaker at the LAPG annual conference on various occasions.
He became Training Manager at Bidwell Henderson in January 2018 and has been working on our award-winning training programme in addition to setting up the Newcastle office.
Megan Kutter
Megan Kutter previously worked in hospitality then transitioned into costing in 2011 almost accidentally. She says revenue management in high costs cases isn’t all that different.
Cost Drafting History: All Legal Aid files civil files including Private Law, Public Law, COP, JR, Housing, CAPA/HRA, with a focus on complex and high costs cases.
Heather Shipley
Heather Shipley started her costs drafting career in 2011. She is a Senior Costs Draftsman, having joined Bidwell Henderson in 2016. Her career in costs commenced in 2011, after graduating from the University of Nottingham with a French degree. Heather maintains a busy caseload and is conversant in all aspects of Legal Aid billing, with a specialism in complex High Costs cases, public and private law matters, and Court of Protection cases.
Heather is also involved with a bespoke training programme, assisting as an Efficiency Trainer, presenting training sessions specialising in efficiency, accuracy, and top costing tips, along with one-to-one tutorials. Heather demonstrates a meticulous and pragmatic approach to costs drafting which provides an excellent foundation for trainees to develop their own style.
Ann Henderson
Ann has many years of experience in legal aid, beginning in 1999. Ann qualified as a solicitor with Marcus Barnett solicitors in 2002. In 2012 Ann retrained as a Law Costs Draftsman and in 2014, co-founded Bidwell Henderson CC Ltd and established her role as a Director of the firm.
Ann regularly prepares complex High Costs Case Plans and advises on negotiations of High Costs Case Contracts with the Legal Aid Agency. She recognises that legal aid billing for High Cost Cases can be particularly challenging and failure to meet LAA deadlines can have serious financial implications for firms.
Rebecca Bidwell
Rebecca Bidwell started her full-time costing career in 2008. Rebecca worked as a civil litigation fee earner for eight years before developing her career in costs. Rebecca has a rounded experience of both legal aid and inter partes cases and specialises in legally aided High Costs Cases and the preparation of High Costs Case plans. She has managed offices since 2011 and heads up the Business Development department of Bidwell Henderson Costs Consultants Ltd.
Her passion project was to create our award-winning programme, so in 2018 she set out to build a training programme that would help fill the gap in the market to nurture new legal aid costing talent.
Rebecca was promoted to Managing Director of Bidwell Henderson Costs Consultants Ltd in 2022.
Samantha Wright
Sam joined Bidwell Henderson as a Trainee Costs Draftsperson in November 2020, based out of our Newcastle office. After providing great support to the training team, Sam was promoted to Training Coordinator at our first Graduation Day in 2022.
Bethany Brayshaw
Beth joined Bidwell Henderson as a Trainee Costs Draftsperson in August 2021. Due to her previous experience in the legal sector, she was an outstanding student of our award-winning training programme. In august 2022 Beth was asked to take on the role of Bidwell Henderson’s Court of Protection Trainer, as she excelled in this specialist area.
Chandler Edlin
Chandler joined Bidwell Henderson in July 2021. Chandler joined Bidwell Henderson as a Business Administration Apprentice but transitioned to the Processing Department as a Processing Assistant, after displaying great potential. He has taken the lead on a substantial number of claims and has built fantastic working relationships with clients and senior team members to deliver processing targets.
Other experienced team members from our Legal Aid Department helped curate the sessions within this Costs Course. For more information on our team members, click here.
