Colin Campbell was a Costs Judge at the Royal Courts of Justice from 1996 to 2015. Before that, he sat as a Deputy Taxing Master from 1993 until taking up his permanent appointment. He was also a Costs Officer of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from 2010 to 2015, and a member of the Judicial Disciplinary panel.
On his retirement in 2015 from his permanent post, Colin continued to sit as a Deputy Costs Judge and at the Land Registration Division of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) until September 2022. In private practice, he was a partner in a London Solicitors’ practice and in 2011, he was called to the Bar.
Colin sat as an assessor with Judges of the High Court in more than fifty costs appeals and also by invitation with the Court of Appeal. He was a member of Lord Justice Jackson’s working group on insolvency fees. He lectures extensively on costs and is on the Editorial Board of the Civil Court Practice. He is also a contributor to Friston on Costs, a regular columnist on costs for Thomson Reuters Practical Law, and the joint editor of Costs Law Reports. His articles on costs have also been published in the Times, Solicitors’ Journal, New Law Journal, Litigation Funding, PI Focus and the Journal of Personal Injury Law.
In 2015, Colin joined Kain Knight Costs Lawyers as a Consultant. In that capacity, he lectures extensively on costs to clients of the firm including the presentation of individual seminars to Solicitors who appear in the Top 100 and also to Barristers’ Chambers. In addition, Colin speaks regularly at public events involving legal costs, which have included the Better Resolution of Clinical Disputes Conference chaired by Lord Briggs and the Law Society’s Commercial Litigation Conference. Each year, Colin chairs the Costs Law Reports Conference and the White Paper Conference.
Colin is also an accredited mediator with Costs Alternative Dispute Resolution (CADR). As a panel member of CADR, he has conducted a large number of costs mediations, as well as having undertaken Expert Determinations and Early Neutral Evaluations in costs disputes.
