Peter Livers exaggerated fees

This is a complaint to the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner about solicitor Peter James Livers. I believe his fees were exaggerated and his actions should be qualified as professional misconduct. I describe the actions of Livers as I believe them to be and provide the reasoning for this conclusion in this complaint. I am still gathering information and evidence about his actions, but I am submitting this complaint now to meet deadline for complaint about his fees.

Peter Livers and my contact details are provided in email.

Dr Alfonsas Stonis 2024-02-19

Complaint Details

Have you tried to resolve matter with the lawyer?

No.

If yes, how? If not, why not?

I informed Livers that I do not agree with this assessment of the cost.

I think his request for payment is too early, because:

1. Claim is still ongoing. Some work is not completed yet. Medicare is holding 10% of compensation. Livers called it just formality, but I suspect it will reveal further financial loss caused by Livers actions.
2. I have not received from Livers all information to assess his work. I wrote to Livers asking for communications he has not provided previously. He replied that there were none, but information from Personal Injury Commission indicates otherwise.
3. There were fees from previous layers being held by Livers in trust account. While earlier he promised to help dealing with previous lawyers' fees, he has done nothing. I am dealing with their fees myself. However, he still will need to transfer funds when I came to agreement or assessment of previous solicitors' fees.
4. I am concerned about negotiating with him as while some matters are still ongoing, and I need additional information from him. He may take some actions that I am not aware of and cause further financial loss or complications as he did during the PIC assessment conference.
5. I strongly disagree with Livers' fees. He provided no positive contribution to my claim. From Livers involvement almost all work was done by me and Livers only contribution was withholding crucial information, providing damaging legal advice and badly written submissions to PIC assessment conference.

Please provide a summary of your complaint and include the following details:

• What happened? Who was involved?
• Details of significant events, such as dates of meetings and court hearings.
• What are your concerns?

Complete description of the complaint does not fit in text fields in complaint form. I provide it below after the formal parts.

Peter James Livers is a solicitor from Slattery Thompson law firm, that represented me at Personal Injury Commission Assessment Conference 2023-06-28 for my personal injury claim. The conference went terribly bad. There were actions by Livers that I identify as professional misconduct. However, these actions differ a lot in their impact. For some corruption is the only logical explanation I can come up with. Others also perfectly fit into corrupt behavior and attempts to cover it, but on their own could be explained by highly damaging negligence if not the other corrupt actions.

Liver sent me an email on 2019-12-19 with the estimate of his costs. I disagree with this estimate because it assumes almost all work preparing my claim was done by him with the exception of the medical dispute. However, he basically completed no work. I had to do everything myself and relying on advice from other solicitors. He did show up at PIC assessment conference and completely misrepresented me. My claim would be much better if there was no involvement from Livers at all. He actually did a lot of harm by withholding important information from me and providing false information to PIC. I have only heard about the extent of his practices recently, and I am still collecting information. I think Livers request for paying is premature as some of the work related to my claim is not complete: for example, Medicare is holding 10% of my compensation claim. This is because some forms have not been completed onetime. I suspect that Lives miscount caused further financial loss that will become apparent after finalizing Medicare Compensation Recovery.

If I understand correctly OLSC can consider complaint about solicitor's fees only within 60 days after request for payment has been made. I do not think this is request for payment as it is too early to pay. I think first we need to complete work related to my claim and then we can estimate and negotiate his fees. However, to be on the safe side I will submit this complaint to OLSC about Peter Livers exaggerated fees and then submit another complaint about his misconduct when I have all the required information.

How do you want us to help you to resolve your complaint?

Please note: One of our officers may contact you to discuss what we can and we cannot do

1. Check if Livers voided the contract by misrepresenting, negligence and providing incorrect information. If so, make the contract void.
2. If contract is still void his bill is grossly exaggerated as his contribution is minimal. Please help me to reduce it to reasonable sum.
3. I believe some of her actions are unprofessional and at least negligent. I do suspect corruption. I hope you will take appropriate action.

What area of legal service does this complaint arise from?

Personal injuries

Are you disputing the legal costs you have been charged by your lawyer?

Yes

Notes There were two main reasons why I will need to update my complaint or submit a new one about conduct of Livers:

1. Some information is not available yet
2. Difficulties due to my mental health problems

I waiting for Livers to deal with Medicare. He sent me some forms to complete in December 2023. These forms had to be completed before the PIC assessment conference if I understand it correctly. I have completed and returned them. I am waiting for response from Medicare and to see what Livers will do about Medicare Recovery.

I am also waiting for information from PIC. I got transcript from PIC assessment conference, but a large part of the assessment conference is missing. Some parts are identified as "not transferable", but there is also part of the conversation missing. For example, there were no questions about personal injury claim form from Mr Ryan or questions from Mr Livers after the member said it was Mr Liver's turn to ask questions. I requested for audio record of the conference.

I am collect other information related to Livers actions and I will submit update on complaint once this information becomes available.

I am trying to describe everything as accurately as I can. Unfortunately many of these memories cause high levels of stress. It quickly triggers PTSD response and shuts down my ability to think. Often I have to take a long break or can continue only the next day or even later.

There were also other problems related to PTSD as some memories got blocked and I am at risk of missing some important information while writing a complaint, but it might come back later. Also when stressed I may not express myself very clearly, partially it is due to the fact that then I think in Lithuanian and may lose some meaning in translation. However, I do my best to be precise and I try to present facts accurately. I am also tired all the time and I constantly have to push myself to exhaustion while still getting only several productive hours a week. I dedicate all my time and energy to solving my legal problems as it is also a way to get better. I hope I am not missing any deadlines this time.

Background

I was cycling in Sydney when a car from oncoming traffic made a right turn straight into me on 2015-03-30. I was sure I was going to die when I saw a car accelerating towards me. I survived, but among other things the fear stayed. Since then, I am struggling with PTSD.

I was frustrated with the way QBE (drivers insurance company) was managing the claim, so I initially contacted Law Partners to represent me. However, I was unhappy with their representation. I feel that they did not collect or submit important information about my health problems. At the end of April 2020, I got a report by Vanitha Moodley (a psychologist hired by QBE solicitors) that had a large number of absurd errors.

Due to concerns about Law Partners’ advice about this report, I contacted one solicitor whom I knew. He recommended to me Moya de Luca-Leonard, who helped him in the past with one client who had a personal injury claim, as he worked in a different area of law. At first Leonard organised assessment by psychiatrist who specialises in PTSD and submitted the documents I sent to her to PIC. Independent assessment confirmed PTSD and significant impact on my life 19% whole person impairment. However, after this, in her submissions to PIC Leonard withheld information about errors in Moodley report and factually incorrect statements by Ceballos, QBE solicitor. Leonard then pushed me to accept unfavorable settlement without any compensation for loss of pas of income. When I asked to submit documents to PIC for independent assessment Leonard has resigned.

I had to find new solicitor quickly to prepare and submit documents, and represent met at PIC assessment. Livers offered to represent me based on regulated fees (I did not now what it was). He also told that he has 30 years of experience in personal injury claims and is highly experienced in it. I had 2 highly exaggerated bills from previous solicitors: Law Partners $178,327.22 and Moya de Luca-Leonard $77,071.50. Livers explanation that his fees will be determined by PIC sounded like a protection at least from fees problem I had with previous lawyers.

My complaint against Peter Livers

Timeline

2023-01-24

I signed authority to act for Peter Livers and he signed agreement that his fees will be limited to regulated costs recoverable from the insurance company.

File: "2023-01-24 Peter Livers agreement.pdf"

2023-12-19

I got an email form Livers informing that he has received the money from QBE. He also included an estimate of his fees. Livers claims fees for all work preparing my claim with exception of the work that was clearly done before his involvement.

Files: "2023-12-19 email from Livers - FW Message from KM_C258 - estimate of fees.pdf", "2023-12-19 SKM_C25823121908250 - Livers fees estimate.pdf"

2023-12-20

Livers sent me forms for Medicare recovery. I have filled them in sent back.

File: "2023-12-20 emails from to Livers - Re FW Message from KM_C258 - Medicare Recovery forms.pdf"

Costs

Exaggerated legal fees

Livers sent me an email on 2019-12-19 with the estimate of his costs (file "2023-12-19 SKM_C25823121908250 - Livers fees estimate.pdf"). He estimate that almost all work was done only by him. While this is not true. Almost all information was collected without any involvement from Livers.

1. All medical evidence and assessment were done before Livers involvement
2. I collected all information about my past income and about loss of income before Livers involvement. I wrote summary of loss of income while preparing for PIC assessment without any help from Livers.
3. Livers did a minimal contribution to past care and then during assessment conference insisted that I withdraw it. So, all my and my wife's efforts preparing it went to nothing.
4. I wrote my statement on my own. Livers only input was insistence that I do not correct incorrect statements made by Ceballos as according to him it will have more weight if it is done in his submissions. However, he never did it.
5. The only thing Livers wrote was his submissions and he did it poorly. He did not included any corrections to Ceballos incorrect statements. This proved to be especially damaging for my claim.
6. Livers did not informed me about request for barrister.
7. Livers did not informed me that QBE is disputing treatment and legal expenses.
8. During assessment conference Livers gave only 3 advices and all very damaging: ask for too high non economical loss, accept objections on treatment expenses and withdraw past care expenses.
9. When asked by Macken, PIC member, answer was that it is written in submitted documents. That is not representation.
10. When it was Livers time to ask me questions during assessment conference he asked only one unimportant question: "how many pots I have in my garden". This way I did not get any chance to present my story, while he promised that he will give a chance to dispute all lies written by Ceballos.
11. Misrepresentation by Livers contributed that the I was awarded similar amount what previous solicitor expected to get from settlement, despite the fact that I provided crucial evidence that previous solicitor overlooked.
12. Livers did not completed his duties with completion of the claim as most of the compensation is still held for potential fees from previous solicitors and for Medicare recovery.

I disagree with this estimate because it assumes almost all work preparing my claim was done by him with the exception of the medical dispute. However, he basically completed no work. I had to do everything myself and relying on advice from other solicitors. He did show up at PIC assessment conference and completely misrepresented me. My claim would be much better if there was no involvement from Livers at all. He actually did a lot of harm by withholding important information from me and providing false information to PIC. I have only heard about the extent of his practices recently, and I am still collecting information.

I think Livers request for paying is premature as some of the work related to my claim is not complete.

If I understand correctly OLSC can consider complaint about solicitor's fees only within 60 days after request for payment has been made. I do not think this is request for payment as it is too early to pay. I think first we need to complete work related to my claim and then we can estimate and negotiate his fees. However, to be on the safe side I will submit this complaint to OLSC about Peter Livers exaggerated fees and then submit another complaint about his misconduct when I have all the required information.

Misinformed how regulated legal costs function

At the first meeting with Livers, he told me:

1. That there there are so called regulated fees.
2. That during PIC assessment legal fees for will be calculated for all lawyers contribution during various stages.
3. That his work is mainly representation during PIC assessment and his will accept the fees assigned to him and will not charge extra.

After the assessment he told me that it is not accurate. That I have to assess contribution of every solicitor my self. However, he sent his bill he assessed that he was the only contributor, while I think he has not contributed at all.

Unfortunately, this incorrect information affected my choice of solicitor. If I had correct information how regulated fees are calculated I would have chosen different solicitor and avoided all problems I have with Livers and all its damaging affects.

Requested legal fees to be paid before work is completed

2023-12-20 day after Livers sent Medicare forms to complete to deal with Medicare Recovery. Medicare expenses related to injury are meant to be paid back by insurance. Almost all my treatment expenses are related to the injury. However, I have selected only the ones that I was able to find enough evidence to relate them to the injury.

Medicare is holding 10% of my compensation claim. This is because some forms have not been completed onetime. I suspect that Lives miscount caused further financial loss that will become apparent after finalizing Medicare Compensation Recovery.

This is day after Livers sent me estimate of his fees. He called it "we shall complete the formal parts". I am also negotiating with previous lawyers fees and money are being held in trust account by Livers. I think it is too early to state that all work for my claim is complete.

Poor advice and representation

I did my due diligence providing evidence for my claim to Livers. However, he did not used it to properly represent me. I spend almost a year collecting and providing missing information for my claim. However, I got a result that was even worse that previous bad result. Livers played major role in making sure that I get minimum compensation.

Misinformed that PTSD is treated as physical injury

At the beginning Moya informed me that PTSD is classified as physical injury and therefore it will be a different assessment than the mental health impact that I have been assessed for and did not pass the threshold. Again, only after Moya resigned, I learned that is not true. I do not yet fully understand the reasoning providing incorrect information about it and possible consequences. I suspect that if in time I will find out that I am not able to recover as well as I expected I will no longer be able to ask for further assessment of damages.

As far I know on its own this would not be a reason to complain about her, but it just keeps wondering what else I was misinformed about.

False promise to deal with Law Partners fees

Moya told me that I should not do anything about Law Partners legal fees, she will take care of it. Year later, in September 2011, she told me that she is not an expert in this area, but she will take care of it. In October 2022 she told me that the best solution is to go to court. I tried to find out more about exaggerated legal fees and found out that there is Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner (OLSC) that can help. Moya was strongly against it. She also told me that I cannot apply for cost assessments at supreme court because I missed the deadline and even if I apply, they cannot help me. If Moya did not misguide me about it, I would have looked for a solution and would have taken appropriate action. I have now submitted complaints about Law Partners at OLSC (one for solicitor Gillian Potts and one for barrister Ken Pryde). However, I missed the deadlines, and it is unclear if I will get any result, but I will need other ways to deal with their legal fees. I also had to rush and could not prepare complaints properly, especially the one about Pryde. I appealed for a time extension, but only time will tell how it will go. Just for going to Moya Law partners increased fees about $70,000. Law Partners fees could be significantly reduced or potentially dismissed all together if not the empty promises by Moya. This fake promise and dragging of time almost certainly cost me a lot of stress, time, effort and money. It also reduced my chances of getting justice and put me through not necessary suffering.

However, Moya must have known how to deal with exaggerated fees as when recently I looked for her appearance in court it was a complaint for her exaggeration of fees. Her insistence that I should not complain to OLSC makes it difficult to write this complaint. All the time I hear her say that OLSC will do nothing and will only make things worse.

Incorrect advice that small courts claim is same as insurance claim

One of the biggest injustices in my life is that the driver who hit me got away without any consequences. Police simply did not do their job. There were witnesses and most likely some hard evidence. However, evidence was not checked and collected at the time and witness statements ignored. I tried to fix it but was not able to. I was left with only one option: to go to small claims court against the driver for the damage on the bicycle. It was emotionally exceptionally important for me. It felt like it was the thing that could make me feel safe again. When I met Moya for the first time I asked about damage to the bicycle, even though I was told that it is a separate matter by other solicitors previously, just in case Moya can help with it too. However, she told me that she does not deal with it. I knew I couldn't deal with a few things at the time, so I was hoping that after I am done with the insurance claim I can focus on the case against the driver. However, the insurance claim was taking much longer than expected or I was told, and I had to deal with a case against the driver. It is meant to be simple and there is not even legal representation in these matters, but I was struggling big time. After a few months of struggles I contacted Redfern Legal Center (RLC). They gave me simple step by step instructions and I was able to submit documents to the small claims court on time. All that was left was to deliver court documents to the driver. I was waiting for some documents from the police and when I got them COVID restrictions were introduced. I had enough time, but restrictions were extended and when they were finally lifted, I had about a month to deliver documents. I went to the driver's address and found out that he had moved. I had few ideas how I could look for him but decided to ask Moya to help to locate him. At first, she asked me to wait for a few days. I thought that she was looking for a new address. However, she told me that I cannot proceed with a claim against the driver. That I was misinformed by other solicitors. In particular she was referring to the solicitor who recommended me her. She told me that he is old, has not worked in this field for a long time and has no clue how it works now. Moya insisted that it is one court case and if I proceed with small claims court, I will not be able to proceed with insurance claim. That the idea of going to small claims court even with the help of RLC is a bad one. She told me that even if QBE admitted liability, it will no longer be valid and may need to prove it for the insurance claim too. The claim through PIC will be dismissed and I will need to go to court. This will cause huge additional costs. She told me that the right thing to do is to simply include compensation for damage to the bicycle in my insurance claim and she will do this. She asked to send her receipt from the bicycle shop for replacement of the bicycle and it was damaged beyond repair. She also told me that it will undo all the good work we have done as we have PTSD recognized by PIC and that this will help for other injured people as they will teach about it in Sydney University. It sounded strange to me as I could not imagine Moya having any connection with Sydney University. Moya was very insistent that I have no right to continue with small claims court. She also said that she will need to take some urgent action related to my claim, but she gave me no details. PTSD puts me in a place where I get easily overwhelmed by the situation and I was not physically able to do anything else, but to accept Moya ultimatum. She updated my statement to be against the driver, but later on when I sent her information about damage to the bicycle, she called me recommending not to do so. I spoke with her about twice on the phone till I finally gave in and agreed to write to her not to include bicycle repair estimates in my claim. At that time, I did not know about fawn response to threats. Now I know more and try to avoid it. However, it is still easy to manipulate me. Nevertheless, it does not excuse Moya's actions in any way. Much later I learned that all Moya said about small claims court to me was not true. I don't really know why she did this. At some point she told me that she did this in case QBE would decide suddenly to make a good offer and knowledge about a small claims court case might delay it. However, at that time Moya already knew that QBE sent an application to have a review of my medical assessment, so they were not going to suddenly make a good offer. The problem is that it had a massive negative effect on me. I spent so much time and effort preparing for a small court case. All I needed was official recognition that it was against the rule what the driver did. I lost that chance because of incorrect advice and manipulation. My PTSD symptoms went over any sustainable level. I could not get continuous sleep for longer than 40 minutes. Coming back to sleep has become very difficult. I started feeling so unsafe at home that after waking up with nightmares I would need to rush outside to control a panic attack. My hyper-vigilance jumped so high that there was no energy left for anything else. It took away most of the progress of the treatment I had for the last few years.

Failure to provide information about Vanitha Moodley report full of absurd errors

Moya told me not to worry about the Vanitha report; she will deal with it. I have provided Moya with the list of main errors and reminded about it several times. However, time passed, and she did nothing about it (I was thinking that she had done something, just did not inform me). The consequences for not dismissing the Vanitha report were terrible. That report could have been easily dismissed as it has an enormous number of absurd factual errors (I counted 146) that would require a teleportation device, time travel, is completely insistent and so on. I cannot believe how the solicitor can be this negligent or even worse intentionally did not want to dispute it. One possible explanation would be that Moya did not want to cause trouble for psychologists that are part of PIC experts. Only much later I learned that Moodley is famous for writing false reports.

QBE used the Moodley report as a key argument for review of independent assessment that I have PTSD. I was not aware of all the details, but that was another excellent opportunity for Moya to highlight how absurd Moodley's report is, but she has done nothing, and review was granted. Unfortunately, the PIC medical assessment panel took this into account and my chances to get anything more than a so-called buffer ($100,000) for the loss of income became minuscule. I have no income since the injury and future looks very grim. Before the injury I was a highly skilled software developer with a PhD in computer science.

As a result, it was included in decision making by the medical assessment review panel and severely damaged my claim. I think the Moodley report impacted a review of medical assessment that concluded that I had some adaptive impairment before the injury and was only capable of doing work that was lesser than my skills. The panel's decision was final. I think it reduced my chances to get compensation for past and future income loss and as a result I got only a buffer ($100k compensation for the past income) and not much more for the future. I will attach the panel decision. Moya tried to mention it later in the particulars, but it was too late (see "2022-10-19 lr qbe 9 offer.pdf" page 3 item 4) "Prior to the accident the claimant was not taking anti-depressant medication and his wife was not helping with everyday tasks - this is an error i the paperwork generated before the current solicitor’s retainer. The claimant worked and functioned day to day, and eventually (later) his wife joined him from Lithuania".

Poor communication or rudeness

Psychological pressure to settle

Sometime after PTSD was recognized by an independent assessor Moya asked if I wanted to settle. From the start I maintained my view that previous lawyers from Law Partners used fake settlement negotiations only to inflate fees. I do not want to spend time trying to settle and would like to go straight to an independent assessment of my claim. Moya forwarded me an offer from QBE that did not include any compensation for loss of past income in September 2021. I told her that I do not agree, and I would like to go to an independent assessment. Then Moya told me that QBE asked for a review of the medical assessment, and we cannot proceed till it is rejected or accepted and done.

The PIC panel medical review left PTSD but added new information that I had reduced capacity to work before the injury. I was not asked about it during assessment and the only source telling this was incorrect Moodley report. Moya blamed previous solicitors and me for this failure. Then instead of trying to fix her errors (negligence or corruption) she suddenly started putting heavy pressure on me to accept a settlement without any compensation for loss of income. As an argument she told me that it will affect my Centrelink payments, but I am not receiving any. Some communications were quite offensive. As ultimate pressure she resigned.

Resigning from case with fake reasons

Pressure to settle did not work simply because I already had this experience with Law Partners, this was one of the core reasons why I came to Moya: to bring my claim to independent assessment. I told Moya that I want my claim to be submitted for independent assessment. Previously she was claiming that she has spent a lot of time preparing my claim and at any point everything is ready to submit for assessment. So, I asked her to do it. Instead of doing this she wrote to me that she is resigning. She provided some fake reasons that she feels like I do not trust her or later on, that it will affect my Centrelink payments. However, I am not receiving any payments from Centrelink. Even after resigning she was putting pressure to settle. The only explanation I can come up with is:

1. she felt that due to her negligence my claim was damaged beyond repair,
2. she exaggerated her fees claiming for the work she has not done, and she did not want anyone to look at it.

Incorrect information provided about current legal representation

Moya informed the QBE solicitor that she is no longer representing me and that they should contact me directly or the solicitor who recommended her some time ago. This implies that another is representing me. This is not true. He was just providing me emotional support dealing with the difficult situation Moya put me in. As a result, QBE informed PIC that I found a new solicitor, and they no longer need to give time to look for a solicitor. It put me in a difficult situation as suddenly I had no time to think and clear my concerns about the solicitor to go ahead with. As a result, I made a bad choice and had to stick with it.

More on impact of Moya actions

At the start I was worried as I thought that Moya is not paying enough attention to the problems I come to her with. However, she reassured me many times that she is very well skilled in these matters, and I should leave it to her. I was in a very dark place with severely reduced cognitive abilities, so I had no choice, but to trust her. At some point there was a glimmer of hope as a new independent assessment was assigned and the report was very accurate.

However, after this, things didn't go well. Her push to drop the last chance to get some feeling of justice against the driver significantly intensified PTSD symptoms. Since then, I had to spend all my time trying to heal damage to my mental health and attend to the problems she promised to deal with but was ignoring. Her actions after an unfortunate medical assessment in September 2022 just completely destroyed my faith in solicitors who work on an hourly basis (even if it was not as bad as with the previous lawyers Gillian Potts and Ken Pryde). Since then, I spent all my time and energy trying to fix the situation but failed. All this could have been avoided, the last 2 years were of needless suffering and the future looks very grim, if she did her job. Any good things can be overwritten if you do bad things after it. All for greed, to charge higher fees, while doing less work.

Attachments

1. Complaint details
2. Cost agreement
3. Itemized bills
4. Emails