To think that lawyers should not charge by the hour?

[DMAGA]

I have recently been represented in an unfair dismissal case by a firm of lawyers who told me that they could help me and then did f* all. The partner charged £400 per hour, his assistant £250 per hour, the consultant £350 per hour and then I was charged for all of them having 'discussions' about my case. They ran up a bill of £200k without achieving anything and, because my case was in the Employment Tribunal, the Tribunal would not have awarded me my costs even if the matter had gone ahead to trial and i had won (which would have cost me another £300k). In the end, I sacked them and reached a satisfactory agreement with my employer on my own, but all of my settlement monies have been spent on paying my lawyers. What other jobs are remunerated by the hour which means, in effect, the more inefficient you are and the longer you take to do the job, the more you will get paid. It's bonkers, isn't it? Does anyone actually like lawyers? Don't they just thrive on other people's misfortunes?

If the OP really did have a case so complex that it was listed for a 4 week trial and she had counsel on board, she did need a lawyer IMO.

It is perfectly possible to represent yourself at a tribunal if your claim is fairly straightforward, but if the OP's story is true then this wouldn't apply to her.

As for the OP's comment "I am afraid that all of my impressions about greedy and unsympathetic lawyers are being reinforced by the responses here" - that is a very nasty thing to say. I wonder whether what you really needed was some emotional support and counselling. A lawyer cannot offer that, perhaps that is part of your disappointment.

I though the OP referred earlier to 'comparators' which suggests she had a discrimination claim. Last time I did employment (which was only a dabble and a few years ago) discrimination claims were uncapped, but the law might have changed - has it?

Comparators suggests an equal pay case, normal compensationlimit wouldn't apply. OP, was this a huge firm? I'm thinking Clifford Chance etc., those rates tend to suggest you went for really big hitters. Was there a letter of engagement? Did you receive any interim bills?

I have dealt with complex cases from representing both respondent and applicant, I charge significantly less than the op's law firm and I have never lost a case.

There are occasions when I have advised my client to use a lawyer, usually when there are PR issues that they need to consider not because it is too complicated for me.

This is odd. You would not pay a lawyer more in fees than you would receive if you won your case. Were there discrimination issues? The OP said unfair dismissal, it didn't mention discrimination.

A 4 week trial and 200k for an employment tribunal? What do you do for a living?

No idea why the green face just popped into my post! Bloody iPhone...

Didn't they give you cost estimates? They have to. In any case, even if they did, you can apply to the court to get your costs assessed.

A lot of lawyers do fixed costs now. I would always find a firm willing to do this. It aligns both of your interests.

Doesn't stack to me either. Unfair dismissal is about £68,000 with a potential 25% uplift if procedure not followed I think. Four weeks is exceptionally long and the case must have been exceptionally complex and must have involved discrimination claims to have made it worthwhile to fight. Also, all ET cases are involved mediation via ACAS so there is no question that mediation would have been available at some stage.

I don't think it would be fair to identify the firm involved, but I won't be instructing them again. Yes, i was lucky to be able to afford the fees, but that's not really the point. The matter is now resolved, however, and my apologies to the decent lawyers on this site. i would like to think that you are in the majority and that i was just unlucky on this occasion.

YABU... Some lawyers are expensive and some take advantage of unclear instructions. It's not exactly breaking news.

It's not a lawyer's job to "fight your corner". They aren't social workers. They take your instructions and act on them.

I'll hold up my hand to being shallow and materialistic though, although my evil lawyer fat cat salary of 32k doesn't allow me to be as shallow and materialistic as I would like.

Why should losing parties not pay winning parties' costs in the Tribunal as they have to in courts?

Because it would discourage ordinary people who have suffered wrongdoing by their huge corporate employer from bringing their claim. Because the ET is supposed to be an informal arena that a lay person can use without legal representation. Probably a lot of other policy reasons that I am ignorant of too.

It would only discourage people who are not confident in their case. At the moment employers, who are often not huge corporate types but small businesses in which people have chanced all they have, are discouraged from defending claims - the system is legalised extortion. And the law (especially on discrimination) is not straightforward and the arena is by no means as informal as you might think.

At the moment claimants are on a one-way bet. They risk nothing and employers can lose everything. One of these days there will be a finding that this grossly uneven playing-field is not compliant with Article 6!

I had a meeting once with a solicitor and her assistant. They kept me in a meeting for 5 hours, then proceeded to charge me £3000 afterwards. There was no warning. I never paid, they never got their money. I wrote to the director of the very well known firm and told them where to stick their ridiculous bill. And they left me alone!

Sometimes solicitors firms are scared of this kind of confrontation and don't want it to go public.

I work for a law firm and also and have instructed solicitors. When I instructed solicitors we had a free consultation at which point the solicitor gave a likely projection of her fees. Then I received a retainer letter confirming these costs. When these costs increased (due to unforeseen additional work) I received another letter informing me of this. I am afraid I can't believe you had a meeting with a solicitor with no warning of likely costs that may be incurred.

I am an employment lawyer, and a partner not magic circle, but big firm. £400 per hour is less than some of our partners in London charge more than some others, the other rates are comparable.

I have once (in over 15 years) done an unfair dismissal case where the costs were greater than £100k. It took 3 years from start to finish and had a lot of other issues involved. It was not a good use of money if this was just a decision about whether the costs would be cheaper to fight or to settle, but that was just one factor.

I also deal with finances for my firms employment department generally, and at no time (including bankers bonuses and discrimination cases) have we charged £200k. Even for very complex disability discrimination you'll never work again cases.

I can understand why you may be aggrieved, but I do think you are being unfair in various ways. For a start I just cannot see how you can have run up those costs with no warning. I would never give a client 200k credit, I am just not allowed to, and I would stop my other partners incurring those charges without money being paid and money on account, so presumably you had interim bills and paid at least some of them. Presumably that gave you some idea that the estimate was being exceeded and updated that estimate. And this was discussed. If it wasn't you have a ground to complain.

I also assume your case had discrimination and equal pay elements, that does make it harder to fight and more expensive, and again I assume this was explained.

However you do say that the solicitors didn't take various steps which had been agreed/were necessary at an early stage and that is disappointing, but that doesn't mean that th ewhole profession is deserving of a slating.

Personally I try not to act for employees very often, as they are always difficult in employment law cases as the costs aren't recoverable, and you can never dictate the response of the employer. For example they may have been unwilling to mediate/settle at an earlier stage and deliberately acted to push your costs up. I have a number of big clients who may sometimes do that, in effect to outspend the employee. That is usually outside your control.

I think there are two sides here and we are only getiing one.

(by the way I aslo do various jobs on fixed and other fee arrangements, but I will not usually act at a loss, which can often happen if an inidivudal is unresonable, demanding, doesn't listen to advise etc and that is often why I chose not to act for employees. when I do act for them sometimes I do so pro bono, but again I can't think I would ever do so for a claim worht by your own admission more than £200k)

Earning £400 an hour is taking the mickey. It has no bearing on the value of their labour - they only charge it because they CAN. And generally that cost is paid for by the taxpayer. As a private client the money was going to come out of my pocket - most clients wouldn't really consider the costs because the LSC pays for it.

At last the LSC rules have changed and solicitors have to take a good hard look at their practices.

Again, nobody is 'earning' £400 an hour in this instance. It is a ratevwhich covers overheads, support staff salaries etc.

£350/hr is pretty normal in my line of work. I've also instructed lawyers who charge £500/hr but that was for very complex, specialist advice involving foreign governments. I was reluctant to pay that kind of amount but had no choice as the amount at stake was huge and the advice required very niche indeed.

It got to £200k before you decided it wasn't worth it? Were you claiming unfair dismissal against the Royal Family?

realhousewife they don't charge it "because they can". There are grades set out for what a fee earner can charge - they are here

And on legal aid cases sometimes the cases end up costing the firms more than the legal aid will pay.

What Hildathebuilder said. I find it very difficult to believe that a £200k bill was run up willy-nilly without any sort of warning, discussion or payment on account.

Lawyers act on their client's instructions - they don't go off on little frolics of their own that then have to be paid for, as their bills simply wouldn't be upheld.

I also find the "lawyers are generally money-grabbing and worthless" type arguments completely facile and meaningless since there is such a vast range of work undertaken by people in the legal profession. Legal aid work, for example, could not in a million years be described as fat-cat or money-grabbing. We should be so bloody lucky. High street firms often undertake fixed-fee or discount work if they have a low-income client base. Big name firms might charge vast amounts because they are charging for their name and their huge resources - if people want that type of bling service then that is up to them. People do need to take personal responsibility for their choices as to the type of firm they instruct. I gave a friend of mine an ear-bashing recently for instructing a ridiculously expensive firm on a minor matter and paying through the nose for something that a friend of mine in another firm could have done for about a quarter of the cost.

And as for the comment about most of these big rates coming out of the taxpayer's pocket - again, legal aid lawyers should be so lucky. It has been many, many years since legal aid work was remotely lucrative. These days firms are going out of business left right and centre because they aren't even breaking even due to incredibly low fixed fees which are being cut more and more each year. There hasn't been a rise of any sort in criminal legal aid rates since the early 1990s - only cuts. Set that against inflation and you will see that it isn't exactly a gravy train.

x-posted with chuffmuffin - that is always fun - when the LSC just decide they don't fancy paying for something that you were duty-bound to do.

Like when an expert witness that the court indicated was needed costs £900 and the LSC say "weeeell, you can have £500 for it".

Always helpful.

I've had experience with four firms.

1)The first offered fixed price for a 'straight forward' piece of work (think conveyancing)

(I know it's not always straight forward but bear with me- this one was)

A very basic error cost me a lot. The legal ombudsman supported my complaint and I was compensated

2. Another sol first met me in a distressed state due to illness and resultant stress. He was extremely sympathetic. I signed terms and engagement letter within two days. Verbally he told me he'd keep costs below £500 and thought he could resolve 'this' for that amount. The letter I agreed to, stated £500 ....and if we go over this figure we will keep you informed

Despite stating that lack of funds was an issue for me he then wrote several letters on my behalf (none of which were discussed with me first) and held a 'long' telephone call. Had he discussed it with me I'd have advised him that this negotiation had already taken place. At this point I wrote a clear letter stating that funds were an issue and I wished all work to be restricted to the inital instruction.
Without any progress in the case he then asked for a further £500. At this stage several months had passed and the 'action' that he was initially employed for had not even been started.
I wrote asking for a break down in costs. By return of post he did not supply this but wrote saying I already had a bill nearly approaching £1000 and he wanted between £1500-£2000 to complete the case.

I felt extremely let down. I'd reached a bill of £1000 but nothing had happened towards the original instruction. I had no more funds and wrote asking him to cease work immediately. The bill had jumped from £500 to £1000 between him asking for authorisation to go above £500 and me querying why.

I then self repped and did the original task and had it completed within a fortnight.

3 months previously I had employed him because personal circumstances (illness) purely to avoid the stress of doing it myself.

I paid him the £500 originally agreed (+VAT) and told his complaints dept to accept it in full and final settlement or take it further. They accepted it.

I still had spent £600 and achieved nothing.

3. I used legal ombudsman compensation to instruct a further sol to correct the error in the work in 1). She was a S T A R.

A clear instruction letter. A clear committment to price and from then on every letter was passed to me for approval. Prompt action and when my 'figure' was reached she discussed my options with me. I self repped the next stage and she advised me and checked my paperwork. I succeeded in my task and would use her again and recommend her widely.

4. Chronologically this one comes in the middle of 2). I had a will drawn up and the work proceeded in a similar fashion to 3)

My conclusion - don't trust your sol to work with your interests in mind-some will ...but some won't. It's very expensive if you employ the latter. I felt exploited and powerless when this happened. I suspect the really good sols would like to weed out the poor examples of their profession because they let them all down.

£3000 is about a month's average wage, gross. Let's say we give a fully trained solicitor twice that amount because they've done their degree etc.

My solicitor should have given me two weeks work. I didn't get two weeks work, I got 5 hours. The letter writing, research and studies around my case were all charged for in addition.

molly you imply that £350 is normal. That's your perception. It is not what I call value for money when somebody who does backbreaking labouring work gets paid £80 a day to feed their family. kungfu the word 'lucrative' is very subjective.

It's precisely because you guys are so deluded about your inflated salaries that legal aid has been cut so severely.