Legal costs scandal: how rip-off fees are rampant
Taxing Master reduces payment sought by lawyers by almost 40pc
THE watchdog that rules on disputes over High Court legal bills has cut fees sought by lawyers by an average of almost
40pc over the past five years. Data obtained by the Irish
Independent reveals more than
€29.2m in fees claimed were deducted by the Office of the Taxing Master between 2012 and 2016.
The figures will fuel fears about excessive charging for legal services and came as the Court of Appeal yesterday dealt with a case involving a solicitor found to have overcharged a client by €500,000.
The court rejected a bid by Wicklow solicitor Joseph Buckley to have the decision by Taxing Master Declan O’Neill judicially reviewed.
Mr O’Neill found one bill submitted by the solicitor in connection with the sale of a family landholding was five times the norm.
The Office of the Taxing Master dealt with 796 cases last year and in the preceding four years it generally dealt with between 1,200 or 1,300 each year.
Deductions imposed over the five years averaged out at 39.5pc. The Law Society said a large portion of the bill of costs in such cases would include costs other than solicitors’ fees.
THE body that decides on disputes over the size of High Court legal bills has cut fees sought by lawyers by an average of almost 40pc over the past five years.
Data obtained by the Irish Independent reveals more than
€29.2m in fees claimed were deducted by the Office of the Taxing Master between 2012 and 2016.
The figures will fuel fears about excessive charging for legal services and came as the Court of Appeal yesterday dealt with a case involving a solicitor found to have overcharged a client by €500,000.
The court rejected a bid by Wicklow solicitor Joseph Buckley to have the decision by Taxing Master Declan O’Neill judicially reviewed.
Mr O’Neill found one bill submitted by the solicitor in connection with the sale of a family landholding was five times the norm.
The Office of the Taxing Master dealt with 796 cases last year and in the preceding four years it generally dealt with between
1,200 or 1,300 each year. Deductions imposed over the five years averaged out at 39.5pc.
Usually cases involve the successful party in a court action seeking to recover their legal costs from the losing side, but the quasi-judicial office also deals with solicitors seeking fees from their own clients.
The data shows that in 2012, the amounts claimed in cases before the Taxing Master was
€7.3m. Rulings knocked €2.6m off those bills, a reduction of
35.6pc.
The sums claimed jumped by more than double to €16m in each of 2013 and 2014, with ultimately €6.3m (39.1pc) and
€6.1m (38.3pc) respectively deducted. In 2015 the sums claimed had jumped to €24.4m. More than €10.1m of this, or
41.5pc, was disallowed by the Taxing Master. Last year, €10.1m was claimed, of which just over
€4m, or 39.8pc, was deducted. According to the Taxing Master’s Office, parties claiming costs must demonstrate such costs were proper and reasonable in all the circumstances.
Despite making swingeing cuts to legal bills, the Taxing Master does not have the power to otherwise sanction law firms that submit excessive claims.
Instead, complaints must be made to the Law Society. Its figures reveal relatively low numbers of complaints for excessive charging, with just
78 complaints in the 2014/15 period. These included complaints about overcharging in litigation, matrimonial cases, probate and conveyancing.
However, under changes being introduced under the Legal Services Regulatory Act, a new legal adjudicators office replacing the Taxing Master will have powers to appoint investigation committees which can propose sanctions for excessive billing.
The Law Society told the Irish Independent that a large portion of the bill of costs in such cases would include costs other than solicitors’ fees. These could include barristers’ fees, doctors’ fees, engineers’ fees and fees for expert witnesses.
“It may well be these are the fees reduced by the Taxing Master, rather than the solicitor’s own fees,” said the society’s director general Ken Murphy.
He also insisted reductions by the Taxing Master did not necessarily mean there had been overcharging.
“The Taxing Master is not reducing the total bill of costs but rather deciding what portion of those costs the losing part to the action is liable for,” he said.
“When a solicitor submits a bill to taxation, that bill usually includes all costs involved in the action and the Taxing Master is obliged to ascertain which of these costs are recoverable from the losing party. In many cases, a part of the costs not recoverable from the losing party may in fact be categorised as solicitor/client costs and therefore recoverable from the client.”
Mr Murphy said the Law Society was of the view “a solicitor should always seek to recover as much of their reasonable costs as possible from a losing party in an action, so as to ensure the client’s liability to their own solicitor is as low as possible”.
Bar of Ireland chief executive Ciara Murphy said the vast majority of costs relate to solicitors professional fees. She said the statistics were an indication the taxation of costs system was working.