About Allocatur

The problem

When a South African court awards costs, the party awarded them needs a bill before the amount can be agreed or taxed: every letter, every page read, every hour in court, each priced at the rate the tariff sets, each dated, in order. The Taxing Master then goes through it line by line. Drawing the bill is slow, exacting work, and many firms hand it to a costs consultant.

What Allocatur does

You upload the matter file. Allocatur reads it and proposes every attendance it can evidence, with the tariff item, the unit and the price on the date the work was done. You allow, strike or edit each line, and export the bill, the notice of intention to tax and the Rule 70 certificate as Word documents. It can also read the other side’s bill and draft the list of objections.

The model identifies the work and proposes the tariff item for it. It never sets a price. The fee is computed in code from the tariff tables in the Government Gazette, applied by date, and the arithmetic of a High Court bill follows the order a Taxing Master expects: fees, uplift, drawing fee, disbursements, attendance fee, VAT. The model can misread a document or miss an attendance, which is why every line is shown with its source and waits for your decision.

What it does not do

It does not give legal advice, it does not attend taxation, and it does not sign anything. The attorney certifies the bill under item E3 of the tariff and remains responsible for it. Allocatur is a drafting tool that shows its working so that you can inspect and correct the draft.

Who is behind it

Allocatur is built in Cape Town by a small team with a background in legal software for South African practices. It is invitation only while the first bills are drawn with the attorneys who use it.