E-Filing of Application for Legal Costs Adjudication to the High Court
26th September 2019
The Courts Service will launch phase 1 of the High Court e-filing of legal cost adjudication applications on Courts Service Online (CSOL) www.csol.ie. following the commencement of Part 10 of the Legal Services Regulation Act, 2015.
This will permit legal costs accountants and legal practitioners to lodge Applications for Legal Costs Adjudication with the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators, electronically in cases where parties are legally represented.
New court forms and new rules of court will support the process which will yield benefits for legal costs accountants and practitioners including the following;
- Online filing of Notice of Application for Adjudication of costs
- Online payment of fees
- Adjudication Application fee
- Court duty at conclusion of adjudication process
- Case Tracking
- Online searchable register of Determinations
- Greater accuracy in the collection of statistics
- More transparency in area of Legal Costs for Practitioners and public
- Greater certainty for all parties in relation to how costs are determined
- Timely empirical data of decisions and determinations
- Reasons for determinations.
In order to lodge an application online, legal costs accountants and legal practitioners must firstly register on the Courts Service Online System (CSOL).
Information on the registration process is available below and explained in detail on our instructional Registration video for Legal Cost Accountants
and on our instructional Registration video for Legal Practitioners
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The registration process
In order that applications can be lodged online, legal costs accountants and legal practitioners must firstly register on the Courts Service Online system (CSOL).
The registration process is a three-stage process.
Google Chrome web browser must be used to enter data and access information on CSOL.
Stage 1.
The first stage is the creation of an account by entering data electronically on www.csol.ie
The following data is required to be entered.
- Account Type (Choose 'Legal Costs Accountant' or 'Legal Firm Account')
- First Name
- Last Name (This should be the contact person designated by the firm or office in respect of CSOL. 'Administrator')
- Email address
- Name of Firm or Office (Some of this information is pre-populated from a database which is provided by the ILCA or by the Law Society)
- Direct Debit Mandate Details – Account Name, IBAN and BIC
Stage 2.
Manual documentation for registration.
The legal costs accountant or legal practitioners firm/office administrator downloads from CSOL documents that are required for registration.
These documents should then be completed in hard copy along with other supporting documentation, as set out in CSOL, and returned to;
Central Application Support Unit,
Courts Service,
Circuit and District Court Operations
Phoenix House,
Smithfield,
Dublin 7.
Stage 3.
Activate Firm/Office Account.
When the manual documentation is received by the Courts Service an email with an activation link issues to the email address provided.
The administrator in the firm/office follows the instructions in the email and activates a firm/office account on CSOL.
The administrator can now access CSOL and register additional users from the firm on CSOL.
Support is available at casu@courts.ie