Legal fees

This is wiki version of legal fees file. I had no time to do proper editing and formatting. It is only start of it, as some things changed and I need to focus on other matters first.

I will start a bit chaotic, because I am still very much pressed by time to do things and do not have much time to write about it. However, do come back as I plan to have complete guide what to do about legal fees when they were exagerrated. It has been and still is very difficult journey for me. I want to share my experience, so others can avoid my mistakes and can do their research much faster using the results that I already have.

Check Road Traffic Injury for further information what I found useful and not so useful when you get injured and try to recover. Trauma and subsequent PTSD was one of contributing factors, that made dealing with legal fees so difficult.

Location

My experience here relates to legal matters I had to deal with in NSW Australia. If I write about other experience, I will note it explicitly.

Definitions

I have encountered 3 types of legal profession representatives

paralegal

I encountered only as supportive personal for solicitors. They might have lower fees, but I do not know can you hire them on their own. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralegal#Australia">Wikipedia</a> description, while there were <a href="https://paralegal.com.au/what-is-a-paralegal/">studies</a> for paralegal, their roles seem to be not well defined.

solicitor

is the one you will engage. Finding good one in personal injury is almost mission impossible. If you are lucky you will deal with average one. Howver, you need help deeling with him or most likely you will be left in big trouble.

barrister

most of the barristers do not communicate directly with clients, only through the solicitor. This is why finding good solicitor is even more important.

Type of fees for legal service contract

   There were 2 basic ways how legal fees can be charge. The only problem is that I found out about it only after 8 years after dealing with solicitors.

Regulated costs

   Because the legal fees are huge problem in getting justice, there is a scheme how they were covered by insurance (or guilty party). Many solicitors take work based on these fees, so after you done with your claim all fees will be paid by insurance. Here is link to <a href="https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/inforce/current/sl-2015-0114">law defining it</a> This law applies to 2015 (when I was injured). You may need to search a bit newer version.

Cost agreement

Terrible midfield and this is the way how I was abused.

Ways to deal with exaggerated fees

There is nice site that provides good explanation about legal fees: costs and charges.

Negotiate

   Lawyers are well aware that they are breaking the law by providing exaggerated fees. It is mentioned in several places that it is recommended to negotiate with lawyers before taking the next step. Any attempts to talk with my lawyers about their fees ended up only in increasing it.

Legal Services Commission

You can complain to Office of Legal Services Commissioner (OLSC). They are responsible to make sure that lawyers conduct themselves appropriately. They can reduce cost, issue fines, award compensation and take other actions against dodgy lawyers. They have 3 years limit to complain about lawyers actions and 2 months about their bills. To find out more how they can help you can check fact sheets.

I wrote 2 complaints to OLSC and need write one more. You can read here about my experience with OLSC.

Supreme court cost assessment

Supreme court cost assessment (SCCA) can assess and reduce legal fees.

I also found guide how cost assessment works: Costs Guide 7th Edition

How to prepare for supreme court cost assessment

I have started preparing for supreme court cost assessment several months ago. At that time, I did not know what it is, I was just told that I can have legal fees taxed. It sounded suspicious as I know very different meaning of word tax. Now I know that it is called supreme court cost assessment.

Assessing someone's work is nothing new to me. I did a lot of it in my professional work especially when I am doing analysis and design of various systems. It is a bit similar to solicitor's work, only solicitor's work is much much simpler. However, my cognitive abilities are severely reduced after injury, so if I write some things the way that is not clear, please let me know.

Simple rules that help:

1. If you made here, the chances are you can do this. I have crippling PTSD, brain injury (still being treated) and I am still doing it. For some useful tips and guidance check Daily functioning tips.
2. Use one place to store all files. I use Google drive: easy to share with other people and can work at the same time with the same documents. You will need help, so multiuser platform is important. It also allows various access rights, so you can share data with solicitor or other people you need to get some advice in read only form. 15GB is for free and it way more than enough for your claim, no matter how complex it is.
3. Name files starting YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601 adopted in Australia too) date format. It will simplify locating documents a lot. Give every document a meaningful title. Date documents based when document was created, most of the time it is when you finished editing document, sometimes you may choose to date when document was sent to relevant recipient.
4. Use email program to read emails. Google browser application is not enough. You want to have all your emails on your computer with views that allow you to see emails in simple list mode. Google email chains are great, but when you need to see chronology, you will benefit from simple list. I use Thunderbird, but most of email programs will have this functionality. They also keep all information when email was sent in case if you need to prove it.
5. When sending information often emails is enough. You do not need to create additional document and sent it as attachments. Do it only when document has meaning and purpose on its own. Documents may not carry information when they were created or sent, emails do. Some lawyers do it just to increase their bills, or to hide dates when documents are created and sent, but about this latter.
6. Digitize everything. Do not leave any documents on paper, including all your medical records, receipts and so on. Ideally you should be doing on the way, as soon as you get document. For example, some receipts tent to fade very quickly and leaving scanning them for later might be a bad idea.

District court

I was recommended by some solicitors that the best way to deal with exaggerated lawyers fees is to go to district court. However, I am not confident this way as I already have problems with lawyers, so why should I expect that it will get better next time.

My case

   After 8 years since the injury I finally had a tribunal on 2023-06-28. I got tribunal assessment determination on 2023-07-20. I have learned that a tribunal can be very corrupt as I have no other explanation for decisions and reasoning that can not be explained by any type of errors or very poor decision making. One of the parts of the tribunal decision was awarding compensation for $41,319.30. Now I have to deal with exaggerated costs, which were close to $300,000.
   

Law Partners

I saw two lawyers from a firm called Law Partners. I started with solicitor Gillian Potts and then for no good reason she included barrister Ken Pryde. They promised to keep fees low, estimating for the whole claim about $60,000. Did very little and gave a bill of $183,000. Currently I have 2 complaints against them: one against Gillian Potts another against Ken Pryde at OLSC. However, there were problems:

• I misunderstood deadlines and some actions may be past the 3 years deadline. OLSC is deciding whether they grant me an exemption.
• OLSC thinks that fees are over their allowed threshold.
• Ken Pryde retired and OLSC is unwilling to investigate.

While waiting I need to prepare what to do next. The possible action is to apply for cost assessment at SCCA, but I am not sure if they will take into account misconduct by Law Partners.

Later in the future I will convert my complaints about Law Partners, so that you can find out in detail how their actions and hopefully avoid it. In mean time here is information here is analysis of their inflated bill.

Exaggerated Law Partners fees

I feel like a scam is the best way to describe the Law Partners work on my claim. There were many things wrong, but lets have look at the simple thing <a href="law_partners_itemized_bill_analysis.html">itemized bill</a>.

Moya de Luca-Leonard

She promised a lot, but did only one thing (submitted application for further medical assessment and got my PTSD recognized). Yet, charged as if she has done everything and more.

This is a more pressing issue as I have not done anything about it yet. Simply had no time. However, the last reply I got from OLSC is that they may take 6 months before they look at my complaints due to current workload. There were some Moya actions that been hidden in my mind that are resurfacing only now, after the tribunal:

• She told me that the court case against the driver for damage to the bicycle and CTP insurance claim are linked. Later on, I found that this is not true. This caused me an enormous amount of mental health damage.
• She ignored my plea to include information about factually incorrect assessment provided by a psychologist hired by QBE solicitors. This made a huge impact on my claim making it almost impossible to claim loss of income.
• She resigned from my claim without completing it, yet with exaggerated legal costs.

Recently when my memories come back, I have realized that I want to write a complaint to OLSC about it. However, I have concerns about evidence I have as some most hurtful things were said on the phone. Follow this link for more detailed story Moya de Luca-Leonard.

A bit of new development. I was preparing very detailed info for cost assessment. It seemed that she is prepared to fight very hard, so I had to make sure that I have very strong case and well prepared. I worked very hard and for very long time, much longer than I thought it might take, but I think I am getting well prepared (I still have a lot to do). I had to register every email or document, but I was surprised to find way less work done than I expected. However, I did not know anything about cost assessment process and it seems few things might be very different than I expected. It seems that even before applying for cost assessment I need to negotiate. I thought she is not going too. However, now because of few other things I have to offer more than I was prepared or I thought will be assessed even in reasonably bad outcome. I do not know what happens if she accepts the offer. All my work may be for nothing, so for now I will try at least to write a guide about the things I have learned. And I learned a lot about #How to prepare for supreme court cost assessment.