300Criteria for costs assessment

300 Criteria for costs assessment (1) In conducting an assessment of legal costs, the Supreme Court must consider— (a) whether or not it was reasonable to carry out the work to which the legal costs relate; and (b) whether or not the work was carried out in a reasonable way; and (c) the fairness and reasonableness of the amount of legal costs in relation to the work, except to the extent that section 300A (Assessment of costs by reference to costs agreement) or section 300B (Assessment of costs by reference to scale of costs etc) applies to any disputed costs; and (d) if the costs agreement contained provision for an uplift fee under section 284 (Conditional costs agreements involving uplift fees), whether the uplift fee was justified in the circumstances. Note The Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002, pt 14.1 (Maximum costs for certain personal injury damages claims) contains limitations on legal costs. (2) In considering what is a fair and reasonable amount of legal costs, the Supreme Court may have regard to any or all of the following matters: (a) whether the law practice and any Australian legal practitioner or Australian-registered foreign lawyer acting on its behalf complied with this Act; (b) any disclosures made by the law practice under division 3.2.3 (Costs disclosure); (c) any relevant advertisement about— (i) the law practice’s costs; or (ii) the skills of the law practice or of any Australian legal practitioner or Australian-registered foreign lawyer acting on its behalf; (d) the skill, labour and responsibility displayed on the part of the lawyer responsible for the matter; (e) the retainer and whether the work done was within the scope of the retainer; (f) the complexity, novelty or difficulty of the matter; (g) the quality of the work done; (h) the place where, and circumstances in which, the legal services were provided; (i) the time within which the work was required to be done; (j) any other relevant matter. Example for par (j) any applicable scale of costs