The defendant solicitors acted for the claimant in a county court action. The court ruled in favour of the claimant and awarded damages against the unsuccessful litigant of £1,800 together with costs of £5,500. The solicitors, however, claimed costs from their client, Long Eaton, of over £20,000, although in January 2000, at the beginning of the action, they had estimated costs at £6,000. Unsurprisingly, the claimant challenged the bill, contending that the solicitors should be held to their original estimate on the grounds that they had failed to warn the claimant that the figure of £6,000 had been exceeded. The solicitors accepted that they had not revised their estimate but submitted that their regular bills had provided the claimant with an indication of costs as they were incurred. The court held that as soon as costs exceeded the figure of £6,000, the solicitors should have revised the estimate before incurring further costs. The work in question was not urgent work which had to be done at the last minute; on the contrary, it had taken several weeks and the solicitors could easily have warned the claimant that costs were ‘running away’. The bills were ‘terse in the extreme’ and gave no clue as to what work had been done. The claimant should not be required to pay more than it would have done had the estimate remained accurate and the solicitors could recover only £6,000 plus VAT, together with a further 15%. It is, perhaps, surprising that little mention was made of the commerciality of the entire action and of the validity of incurring over £20,000 in costs in connection with a claim worth only £1,800. Nevertheless, this case is a salutary reminder to lawyers of the need to keep their clients equally advised of both costs and new developments in a case as part of their general duties.