Bill drafting for all courts and forums throughout South Africa, including litigious and non-litigious legal-costs work.
Experience200+ years combined team experience
Drafted20,000+ bills of costs drafted
Opposed10,000+ bills of costs opposed
ResolvedThousands of taxations and settlements completed
About Legal Costs Online
South Africa's institutional authority in legal costs.
Legal Costs Online combines specialist legal-costs judgment with data-informed technology, structured drafting systems and predictive legal-costs intelligence, where human knowledge meets AI-driven software personally built by Matthys Lourens.
New Generation Legal-Costs Pillars
Opposition, taxation strategy, settlement positioning and appearance capability across courts and forums.
Structured legal-costs judgment supported by tariff knowledge, court practice, case law and recoverability intelligence.
The future-facing intelligence layer for prediction, benchmarking, settlement ranges and strategic legal-costs outcomes.
LCO Draft
Structured bill drafting infrastructure for bills of costs in all courts and forums throughout South Africa, covering litigious and non-litigious legal-costs work, designed to standardise output, reduce drafting time and preserve institutional knowledge.
The LCO Platform
A modern legal-costs command system.
Built around the way attorneys, counsel, corporates and insurers actually work: structure the matter, draft or oppose the bill, assess recoverability, settle intelligently and preserve the knowledge for the next matter.
Secure matter intake
Hard or electronic files are organised for bill drafting, opposition, taxation, settlement or non-litigious legal-costs review.
Matter intelligence
Court, forum, parties, costs order, tariff period, VAT position and bill structure are organised into one legal-costs workspace.
LCO Draft and LCO Tax
Bills, objections, summaries, allocaturs, certificates and settlement positions are prepared for formal scrutiny.
LEGAL COSTS ONLINE
Infrastructure + Intelligence
LCO Draft
LCO Tax
LCO Intel
LCO Quantum
Human knowledge + AI-driven softwarePersonally built by Matthys Lourens
Intel-assisted review
Specialist judgment is supported by tariff knowledge, court practice, case-law awareness and recoverability patterns.
Quantum settlement view
Claimed, disputed, likely recoverable and settlement-ready amounts are modelled into practical decision support.
Knowledge compounds
Every matter improves the institutional dataset: bill values, objections, reductions, settlements, counsel fees and outcomes.
Positioning
The infrastructure behind modern legal costs practice.
Legal Costs Online is not positioned as a traditional drafting service. Founded by Matthys Lourens, it is a national authority institution combining specialist taxation expertise, Legal Costs Arbitration, data-informed technology, legal costs analytics and disciplined legal costs intelligence through software personally built around his legal-costs knowledge.
Legal Costs Arbitrator
Specialist arbitration and assessment capability for legal-costs disputes, supported by experienced legal-costs judgment and national practice insight.
Legal Costs Analyst
Structured tariff, disbursement, fee-list and bill analysis for attorneys, counsel, large companies, corporate litigants and costs decision-makers.
Legal Costs Intelligence
Tariff periods, rulings, case law, court practice, non-litigious fee assessment and legal-costs strategy translated into practical decision support.
Authority and Legacy
Built on national authority.
Legal Costs Online was founded by Matthys Lourens in 1996 and remains led by him as Managing Director. Matthys Lourens is a former High Court Taxing Master in Cape Town with 32 years of specialist legal-costs experience and co-founder standing in the Board of Legal Costs Mediators.
32years of Matthys Lourens' legal-costs expertise
30years of Legal Costs Online
400+law firms supported nationally
200+years of combined team experience
LCO Intel
Precision in Legal Costs. Intelligence in Legal Practice.
Intel supports, but never replaces, professional legal-costs judgment. It brings together the tariff record, court practice, fee agreements, costs orders, recoverability principles and the practical experience required for litigious and non-litigious legal-costs decisions.
National legal-costs infrastructure
Legal Costs Analyst network, formal costs experience, non-litigious cost assessment, electronic drafting workflows and structured legal-costs records developed under the direction of Matthys Lourens.
BLCM authority
Proud co-founder and member of the Board of Legal Costs Mediators, South Africa's specialist ADR platform for legal-costs mediation, assessment and arbitration.
Cape Town Infrastructure
Institutional presence. National reach.
From Cape Town, Legal Costs Online supports attorney firms, counsel, large companies, corporate clients, litigants and non-litigious mandates nationally through structured legal-costs infrastructure, legal-costs strategy, Legal Costs Analyst capacity and LCO Intel.
Professional base
A visible institutional address for serious legal-costs work, national matters and formal legal-costs assessment.
National operations
Infrastructure that connects local authority, national reach, tariff intelligence and structured legal-costs data.
The Four Pillars of LCO
A new generation of thinking about legal costs.
LCO Draft, LCO Tax, LCO Intel and LCO Quantum are not separate ideas. Together they form South Africa's legal-costs infrastructure and intelligence platform: drafting, opposition, analysis, prediction, benchmarking and settlement intelligence in one institutional framework.
LCO Draft
Tariff-aware drafting infrastructure for bills of costs in all courts and forums throughout South Africa, including summaries, certificates, allocaturs, disbursement records and formal legal-costs documents.
LCO Tax
Taxation and opposition infrastructure with the right of appearance in courts and forums, supporting objections, item-level reductions, settlement comparisons, taxation notes and recoverability analysis.
LCO Intel
Legal costs intelligence for wording, tariffs, case law, court practice, fee agreements, costs orders and practical professional decision support.
LCO Quantum
The crown jewel of the platform: legal-costs intelligence for attorneys, counsel, corporates and insurers, built from real taxation, settlement, objection and recovery patterns.
LCO Quantum
The crown jewel of legal-costs intelligence.
LCO Quantum is the future-facing intelligence layer for attorneys, counsel, corporates and insurers. It converts Legal Costs Online's accumulated legal-costs experience, historic bills, objections, settlements, taxation outcomes and recovery patterns into practical decision support.
Strategic Intelligence
Know the likely costs outcome before the fight becomes expensive.
Quantum is designed to help decision-makers understand recoverability, settlement ranges, tariff exposure, counsel-fee risk and taxation behaviour before committing to a costs strategy.
For attorneys and counsel
Better advice on bills, objections, settlement positions, counsel fees, court-division tendencies and the practical risk of item-level reductions.
For corporates and insurers
Portfolio-level visibility over legal-costs exposure, likely recoveries, excessive charging patterns and settlement strategy across repeat litigation.
For institutional decision-making
Benchmarking drawn from real-world taxation and settlement experience, not generic theory, giving legal-costs decisions a stronger evidential footing.
Predictive taxationLikely reductions, recovery ranges and taxation risk.
Settlement intelligencePractical settlement bands for bills and objections.
Counsel-fee trendsFee behaviour, recovery patterns and scale sensitivity.
BenchmarkingDivision, forum and matter-type legal-costs patterns.