The Civil Legal Services (Remuneration) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025

Explanatory note

Reproduced verbatim from the instrument as published on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). The note is prepared by the responsible government department and is not part of the instrument itself.

This Order prescribes the remuneration payable to solicitors and counsel for providing civil legal services under Part 2 of the Access to Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2003.

The main body of this Order deals with the manner in which the remuneration is to be determined and paid. In part, the provisions draw on the corresponding provisions contained in the Civil Legal Services (Remuneration) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015.

The 2015 Order is being superseded by this Order, which makes provision for the remuneration of work done following an application for advice and assistance where the date of first advice is on or after the relevant operative date or under a certificate for civil legal services where the certificate is granted on or after the relevant operative date. The operative dates are set out at Article 3 of this Order. The 2015 Order remains in force to provide for the remuneration of any work done where the date of first advice or, as the case may be, the date of the grant of the certificate is such that it is not within the scope of application of this Order.

Initial determinations in such cases will be undertaken by the Department of Justice. A system of redeterminations and appeals is provided for enabling solicitors and counsel to challenge the remuneration determined in a particular case.

Schedules 1 to 4 of this Order set out the levels of remuneration payable for the various categories of work involved, including the different forms of proceedings in each of the court tiers.

This Order comes into operation on [Date].