In October 2025 the LAA brought in a new Submission spreadsheet, this is to account for the changes they have made to the way fees are to be recorded.
A new column has been added to the Spreadsheet called ‘Fee Code’, this code will be used to determine the amount that the firm is paid for the Invoice. It is in place for Criminal, Civil & Mediation and the ‘Fee Code’ is calculated depending on the type of invoice that has been posted.
In a Criminal case it is calculated from the Stage Reached, and the Class of Work, amongst other things.
For example, a Criminal Invoice which is a Criminal Investigations class of work, which has reached the stage INVB, for a London Rate the Fee Code will be INVB1, a National Rate code will be INVB2.
In a Civil case the Fee Code will be calculated depending on the ‘Matter Type 1’, and ‘Matter Type 2’ codes as well as settings on the Legal Aid Details screen.
For Example, a Family case where the Case/Stage Level is FPL01 on the Legal Aid Details screen, and has a Matter Type 1 of FAMA on the Invoice will have a fixed fee calculated and the Submission will have a Fee Code of FVP012.
The LAA will be requiring ‘all April 25 – Sept 25 submissions to be made in Submit a Bulk Claim’, this means clients will need to re-generate their submissions for April 25 – Sept 25 and upload these into the portal.
Fixed Fees will now no longer be shown in the Profit Cost column as this is calculated from the Fee Code, the Profit Cost column will show the actual profit costs recorded on the invoice.
