Solicitor’s appeal over €650,000 cut to fees dismissed
A HIGH Court judge has dismissed a challenge by a solicitor to a decision to cut costs he sought from a former client by €650,000.
Wicklow-based solicitor Joseph Buckley’s costs bill was decreased by the Taxing Master, who assesses legal bills arising from court actions.
A legal costs accountant described it as “the worst example of overcharging” he had ever seen.
Denis Doyle, a client of Mr Buckley for 10 years, had opposed Mr Buckley’s case over the cut and claimed the Master’s decisions showed Mr Buckley was involved in “serious overcharging” of him.
Taxing Master Declan O’Neill issued a determination in January 2017 that made reductions of about €650,000 in claims by Mr Buckley. However, that determination was not finalised pending Mr
Buckley’s High Court case over it.
Separate proceedings by Mr Doyle against his former solicitor seeking a sum of €565,000 in a client account, which Mr Doyle alleges is his also, remain on hold pending the High Court review.
Mr Buckley, who claims he is owed the monies in fees, had said €45,000 remained in that account. Yesterday, Mr Justice Donald Binchy said he had concluded the court should not intervene in the “significant reductions” made by Master O’Neill.
He had one reservation arising from Mr Buckley’s insistence he had discharged a particular sum of €190,000, the judge said. If Mr Buckley could establish he had done so, that could be taken into account at the plenary hearing and the Taxing Master’s findings adjusted to reflect that.
The judge gave a brief summary of his decision. Full judgment will be made available within a few days.
He said a lack of judicial resources meant a “very unsatisfactory state of affairs” where judges had to sit and hear cases one after another, with no opportunity to give decisions in a timely manner.
This led to cases such as this, which threw up complexities and a lot of material requiring “careful sifting”, getting pushed aside, he said.