Claimant & Defendent Lawyers Have Billed Excessively.

indianabones

A case was made by a family friend of ours in Dec/Jan and he lost the case. Long story short the two defendants collaborated and the judge sided with them. !!!! happens I guess, I wasn't in court so not sure what happened fully.

The court order that was asked to be paid to the defendant has been. Judge also ruled all legal courts on both claimant and defendant side to be paid. But since then his lawyers have put a bill together, a joke of a bill to be honest. Charging £200 to "checking the compilation of the bill" on top of £800 to compile the bill in the first place. Well that can be brought down I'm guessing quite easily as they quoted much less than they're charging.

But one of the third party lawyers have put a bill together demanding a serious amount £29k for costs and for £10k to be paid within 14 days or further action to be taken.

I think he can afford to pay legal costs up to around £12k per lawyer, but beyond that is not possible. I could help out and I'm sure others could by borrowing some money to them.

I was almost as mad as he was when I heard his lawyers no longer want anything to do with him and simply want their money and want out.
What can the third party solicitors do if 1. only a portion of that 11k is paid or 2. none of it paid because he wants to dispute it. Can you even dispute their costs, especially when you see things like 12 min calls costing £80 etc. He's already made a move of changing title deed of his property and ownership of his car to his daughter to slow down any legal action that might come about. He's not poor, nor is he feeling sorry for himself, but he thinks and I certainly agree that these lawyers are taking the p*s.s

sourcrates

Hi,
Sorry to hear of your troubles, you may get a better response if you post on a legal forum, try asking here :

http://www.legalbeagles.info

January2015

indianabones wrote: »

Can you even dispute their costs, especially when you see things like 12 min calls costing £80 etc.

I can't comment on the costs in general, but 12 min calls costing £80 doesn't seem outrageous for legal professionals.

Break that down to a per minute rate £80/12 minutes = £6.67 per minute

Now multiply that up to an hourly rate £6.67 x 60 minutes = £400 per hour. That may seem high compared to average hourly rates, but that is what legal services seem to cost.

matttye

What was he quoted at the start of the case? He should have been told what the hourly rate was.

I work for a firm of solicitors and we tell clients what our hourly rate is and how much it will cost per letter and routine telephone call. A letter or routine telephone call are usually 10% of the hourly rate. So if the hourly rate is £150 per hour, which is what we will charge a lot of the time, a letter or telephone call will cost £15.

If a telephone call exceeds 6 minutes then it will be charged at the hourly rate according to the amount of 'units' (6 minute blocks) it is. So a 12 minute telephone call would be 2 units, meaning it would cost £150 / 10 * 2 = £30. And then there's VAT on top. To charge £80, the hourly rate would have to be £400 per hour..certainly wouldn't be unusual in London or surrounding areas.

The big thing though is that it should all have been communicated to him in a client care letter when he first instructed the firm. Did he get one? If not, their bill is arguably unenforceable.

He's entitled to complain first to the firm and then to the Legal Ombudsman. If the charges were communicated to him then his complaint is probably a non starter unless the case was a lengthy one and the solicitors never sent him an interim invoice. You're suppose to keep clients updated as to costs.

indianabones

matttye wrote: »

What was he quoted at the start of the case? He should have been told what the hourly rate was.

I work for a firm of solicitors and we tell clients what our hourly rate is and how much it will cost per letter and routine telephone call. A letter or routine telephone call are usually 10% of the hourly rate. So if the hourly rate is £150 per hour, which is what we will charge a lot of the time, a letter or telephone call will cost £15.

If a telephone call exceeds 6 minutes then it will be charged at the hourly rate according to the amount of 'units' (6 minute blocks) it is. So a 12 minute telephone call would be 2 units, meaning it would cost £150 / 10 * 2 = £30. And then there's VAT on top. To charge £80, the hourly rate would have to be £400 per hour..certainly wouldn't be unusual in London or surrounding areas.

The big thing though is that it should all have been communicated to him in a client care letter when he first instructed the firm. Did he get one? If not, their bill is arguably unenforceable.

He's entitled to complain first to the firm and then to the Legal Ombudsman. If the charges were communicated to him then his complaint is probably a non starter unless the case was a lengthy one and the solicitors never sent him an interim invoice. You're suppose to keep clients updated as to costs.

Hi and thanks. I've not spoken to him since my original post, will catch up with him later today or tomorrow. But what I know is the following.

His own lawyer gave a rough estimate verbally, that was in the 12k region, now I'll ask again to make sure no written documentation was sent with this quote. That said, his own lawyer's bill was £17k and he's already after reading stuff online asked for the full bill and what the costs are. He intends to dispute the fees immediately as that is a substantial amount of amount and significantly more then their verbal quote. Hopefully he doesn't turn around and say "oh they did send a letter with a price but I can't remember where it is".

The problem with his own lawyer isn't too bad because he had a rough idea of what the price was going to be and whilst they're asking for more, it'll probably drop to a reasonable amount.

The main problem is with the two third party lawyers. One of them has sent a letter asking for direct contact via phone, so that'll be done later in the week. Apparently one of the third party lawyers will be charging £10k, but cannot confirm until he's called them.

The other third party lawyer is the one he's concerned about, they are the ones who have basically put down all sorts on their 10 page bill, had a brief scan of it and said stuff like £80 for 12 min calls etc. There was another section with £200 for checking that their own bill was correct or not. Well it all amounts to 29k, way way more than what his own solicitor firm is asking for and what the first third party lawyer will probably charge.

Both myself and another friend told him he needs to speak to some legal experts (not an of the firms above) and the CAB before making any move or any contact yet.

MEM62

The problem for a lot of people is that they underestimate the cost of litigation and often fail to consider the risk and consequences of losing their case.

Your friends best course of action is to negotiate with the law firms and come to an arrangement to pay.

Any attempt to offload assets like the house will be futile. In the event that recovery action is taken they will be wise to these tricks. Your friend has lost the case and is now in a tough position. He might want to encourage as much goodwill from the lawyers that he owes money to as he can.

andyfromotley

indianabones wrote: »

Hi and thanks. I've not spoken to him since my original post, will catch up with him later today or tomorrow. But what I know is the following.

His own lawyer gave a rough estimate verbally, that was in the 12k region, now I'll ask again to make sure no written documentation was sent with this quote. That said, his own lawyer's bill was £17k and he's already after reading stuff online asked for the full bill and what the costs are. He intends to dispute the fees immediately as that is a substantial amount of amount and significantly more then their verbal quote. Hopefully he doesn't turn around and say "oh they did send a letter with a price but I can't remember where it is".

The problem with his own lawyer isn't too bad because he had a rough idea of what the price was going to be and whilst they're asking for more, it'll probably drop to a reasonable amount.

The main problem is with the two third party lawyers. One of them has sent a letter asking for direct contact via phone, so that'll be done later in the week. Apparently one of the third party lawyers will be charging £10k, but cannot confirm until he's called them.

The other third party lawyer is the one he's concerned about, they are the ones who have basically put down all sorts on their 10 page bill, had a brief scan of it and said stuff like £80 for 12 min calls etc. There was another section with £200 for checking that their own bill was correct or not. Well it all amounts to 29k, way way more than what his own solicitor firm is asking for and what the first third party lawyer will probably charge.

Both myself and another friend told him he needs to speak to some legal experts (not an of the firms above) and the CAB before making any move or any contact yet.

I doubt very very much that he only received a verbal quote form his lawyer with no breakdown of costs and a broad outline of the likely total bill!!!

i suspect very much he will indeed say 'oh that letter!!'.

The 3rd party fees don't sound hugely unreasonable from what you are saying (without knowing any of the details) but its not as if they have weighed in with a huge bill of 100k whack would be clearly disproportionate.

PollyWollyDoodle

As far as his own costs are concerned, he will have been sent information about the firm's hourly charging rate etc at the outset - it is very unlikely that they failed to do this. They should also have given estimates of the cost at various points, so that by the time it went to trial he had a fair idea of what it would cost.

He needs to take that up with his own solicitors, but unless there is some evidence that they either failed to give him information about their costs or that their charges are obviously over-stated, for example they quoted £2,000 and then charged £12,000, then I don't think the Ombudsman is likely to get involved.

As far as the other party's costs are concerned, he can apply to court for a Detailed Assessment of Costs - this may reduce the bill somewhat but they haven't just plucked a figure out of the air, they have based their bill on work they have done and costs that they can reasonably expect to receive. Of course it will be on the high side to give them room for manoeuvre - costs are usually agreed after a bit of argy-bargy. He'll need his solicitors for this though, and yes - they will charge for doing work on that.

matttye

The way a solicitors firm usually does business is:-

1) Provide an estimated quotation for the entire case;
2) Ask for a certain amount of money upfront (this is called asking for 'money on account');
3) Once work has been done that covers the money on account, an invoice is sent for the work done so far and the money then becomes the firm's money. Until work has been done, even though the firm is in possession of the money it is technically still the client's money. If there is further work to be done, the firm will then ask for further money on account.
4) The firm should never go beyond the quoted estimate without telling the client in advance.

This can happen any number of times...

Alternatively, sometimes a firm will agree a fixed fee with a client and therefore they can just ask for the entire fee upfront and send a bill at the end of the case.