Legal fees

This is wiki version of legal fees. 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 <a href="road_traffic_injury.html">Road Traffic Injury</a> for futher information what I found useful and not so useful when you get injured and try to recover.

Location

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

Definintions

I have encountered 3 types of legal profesion representatives

paralegal: I encoutered 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 seems 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

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 to run a scam.

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

Exagerrated Law Partners fees

   A scam is the best way to describe the way Law Partners work. 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 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. Follow this link for more detailed story Moya de Luca-Leonard.