Moya de Luca-Leonard solicitor

This is my story of dealing with solicitor named Moya de Luca-Leonard. It is a part of my larger story of the exaggerated legal fees (info migrated to wiki).

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 lied about the link between the court case against the driver for damage to the bicycle and CTP insurance claim. 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. Please follow this link for more information about Writing a complaint to Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner.

Complaint to the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner

Complaint has 9 steps, so I go one by one.

Before lodging a Complaint

The recommendation to read about OLSC or contact them.

Authority to Represent

Are you representing someone else: no.

Complainant Details

My contact details.

Lawyer Details

Allows you to search for lawyer by name or firm.

Select lawyer type: solicitor.

Lawyer Contact Details

Lawyers contact details. I also had a look at register of solicitors, when I was not sure about the address.

Complaint Details

Have you tried to resolve matter with the lawyer?

Yes.

If yes, how? If not, why not?

Peter (solicitor who took claim after Moya resigned) and I demanded full payment

Before contacting Moya de Luca-Leonard

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 am going to die when I saw car accelerating towards me. I survived, but among other things the fear stayed. Since then I am struggling with PTSD.

QBE (drivers insurance company) did not pay for any treatment and was giving empty promises so I asked Law Partners (personal injury law firm) to represent me. However, it went terribly wrong. They did not collected or submitted some important information about my health problems caused by road traffic injury. At the end of April 2020 I got a report by Vanitha Mooldey (psychologist hired by QBE solicitors) that had an enormous amount of absurd errors. Law Partners pushed me to accept this report saying that there is nothing I can do and because of this report my claim is damaged and I need to accept whatever QBE is offering. I have contacted one solicitor whom I knew, even if he works in a different field, asking for help. He recommended to me Moya, who helped him in the past with one client who had a personal injury claim. This is how I ended up with Moya.

Reasons to start working with Moya

Before meeting Moya, I forwarded all information to the solicitor who recommended her and he forwarded everything to Moya. I have identified the following problems:

Deeply fraudulent Moodley report
Exaggerated Law Partners fees
PTSD not being recognized
Refusal to go for an independent assessment and court if required

I asked Moya (first indirectly, but later directly) if she can help with these problems, before signing the contract with her. These were the promises I got from Moya:

Moodley report is not a big problem. She deals with reports like these all the time and she will have it dismissed easily (will not affect independent assessment).
She has dealt with exaggerated legal fees in the past and has gone to court against other solicitors. She knows what she is doing. She will deal with it.
PTSD is classified as physical injury, not as mental one, because it causes long lasting changes in the brain. I can apply for it to be assessed. Law Partners lied to me that there is nothing that can be done.
She will bring my claim to independent assessment or court if necessary and she is sure that I will have a much better financial outcome compared to what I can get now with Law Partners' offer. She said that my claim is relatively simple, but we need to move quickly in order to fix it.

Problems dealing with Moya

Exaggerated legal costs. Moya estimated costs at $60,000 before she started representing me. She has done only fraction of the work yet, the bill is already higher than original estimate.
Lied about the purpose of government listed legal costs. At the first meeting with Moya she told me that there is a list of legal fees at the official site for personal injuries. However, these prices are absurdly low and no one is using them. She told me that this is bureaucratic left over from a long time ago. I was wondering why they keep it, but I have seen lots of leftover information on various sites. Only a few years later I have learned that this is important information, that for many claims this is the fees solicitors work for and that it is used for getting back legal fees from insurance companies. If she explained it to me properly I would look for the solicitor who would take my claim based on these fees. I also was told that I would get legal fees back if my claim is successful if I knew that I would get only this part I would know about the importance of keeping track of it.
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 a few years later I learned that is not true. I do not yet fully understand the reasoning lying about it and fully possible consequences. I know 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.
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 find 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 lie me about it, I would have looked for solution and would have taken appropriate action. I have submitted now complaints about Law Partners at OLSC (one for solicitor Gillian Potts and one for barrister Ken Pryde). However, I missed the deadlines and my complaints most likely will not be considered. I also was out of time and could not prepare complaints properly especially the one about Pryde. I appealed for time extension, but there is very little chance that I will get it. Just for going to Moya Law partners increased fees about $70,000. Law Partners fees could be potentially dismissed all together or significantly reduced if not the empty promises by Moya. This fake promise and dragging of time almost certainly costed me at lease $100,000 or maybe more. It also reduced my chances of getting justice and put me through not necessary suffering.
Lies 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 exceptionally important emotionally 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. 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 why 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 tell Moya about it. 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. She told me that even if QBE admitted liability it will no longer be valid and may need to prove it for 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 asked to include damage to the bicycle in the calculation she refused to do it. 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.
Moya exaggerated her fees. While representing me Moya updated me on the phone about her ongoing fees few times. The last time she mentioned it, she told me that if claim will be settled soon, and there was a chance, at the end her fees including the barrister consultations should be no more than $17,000. However, when she sent me a bill about month later it was over $40,000 and there was very little work done. I told her that I do not agree with fees as she quoted 60,000 for whole claim going to court and we were far from it. I tried my best to get some control over the situation, but it led nowhere. Year later she slammed me with updated bill for $77,000 while the only thing she did was to write several emails and resend some documents. BTW she did it very bad missing key information, that led to the situation where I basically lost any chances to get compensation for loss of income.
Psychological pressure to settle
Failure to provide information about fraudulent Moodley report. As a result it was included in decision making by medical assessment review panel and severely damaged my claim. I think Moodley report impacted 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 degree than my skills. The decision of panel was final. I think it reduced my chances to get compensation for past and future income loss and as a result I got only buffer ($100k compensation for the past income) and not much more for the future. I attach panel decision. Moya tried to mention it later in particulars, but it was too late.
Resigning from case with fake reasons.
Incorrect information provided about current legal representation.

Moya lied that I excepted her fees

She wrote to new solicitor that her fees were accepted knowing that it is not true. After being confronted that her fees were not accepted she wrote to QBE stating that her fees were accepted and demanding direct pay.

Attachments

Complaint details
Cost agreement
Itemized bills
Emails