Jefferson and Coulston

The case of *Jefferson and Coulston* concerned an application by the applicant wife for orders relating to the payment of legal costs in family law proceedings. The respondent husband had incurred legal expenses, and the applicant sought orders ensuring her own legal costs were met from payments made by the husband for his legal representation.

The central legal issue before the court was how to secure payment of the applicant's legal costs from funds the respondent was paying to his own solicitors. Specifically, the court had to determine the mechanism by which payments made by the respondent for his legal expenses would be redirected, in whole or in part, to the applicant's solicitors, and under what conditions and limitations such payments would operate.

Tree J ordered that within seven days of any payment by the respondent of his solicitors' accounts, the respondent was to pay an equivalent sum to the applicant's solicitors. The respondent's solicitors were to hold any payments received from the respondent in trust until this payment to the applicant's solicitors was made. If the payment was not made within the seven-day period, the respondent was to direct his solicitors to pay 100% of any further payments to the applicant's solicitors. These payments to the applicant's solicitors were to be applied towards her costs and disbursements in the proceedings, capped at a total of $50,000, with liberty to apply to increase this sum. The order was to have effect from 1 July 2014, capturing work performed on or after 12 July 2014, with payments due within seven days of the order's date for any amounts that would have been payable had the order been pronounced earlier. Otherwise, the wife's application was dismissed.