Victoria Weinrich-Cooke, qualified Costs Lawyer at MRN Solicitors in the Leeds office 

Victoria gives her thoughts on her career so far and why she studied to become a Costs Lawyer.

Tell us about your firm and your job role.. 

I work for MRN Solicitors., We are exclusively a costs law firm. I am Head of Costs and deal with all aspects of the job including drafting high value bills of cost in a variety of specialist areas, paying party work, Replies to Points of Dispute, Solicitor/own client matters, advocacy.

What does your day-to-day work involve?

Managing a team of staff, dealing with allocation of new matters, Client care, internal performance trackers and fee earning, training in-house at Client firms and business development of the Leeds branch.

What attracted you to a career in costs law?

It was an opportunity I had not realised existed when I went to a legal agency for another role – I was trained at DLA Sheffield in 2005.

What do you enjoy most about your work / what has been a particularly memorable matter to work on?

I was fortunate enough to appear in the UK Supreme Court on a high profile commercial matter involving international law and provided advocacy representation for my Client in the two day detailed assessment.

What made you decide to study the ACLT course?

My partner (also a Costs Lawyer from many years ago) indicated that it would be a good achievement to attain.  In actual fact, I got far more out of the course than I was expecting and the thorough nature of the assignments and the court modules was of an excellent standard and at a very challenging level.

What advice would you give to those studying the ACLT course?

Try to schedule some time to deal with the course assignments bit by bit.  Its hard sometimes not to get behind when you are perhaps working full time and have other family commitments but if you keep your hand in, even if you only achieve a fraction of what you set out to do that week, it will chip away and fly by.

Tell us about the impact using a Costs Lawyer can make!

Using a Costs Lawyer means that you have the security that you are instructing a regulated individual to action your matter.  The broad level of knowledge required of a Costs Lawyer ensures that you will be getting thorough advice and excellent representation.  

Added May 2023