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?

What about 'no win, no fee'? Or is this going to be abolished, therefore making it even more difficult for people to have access to justice unless they are companies or very rich?

dmaga-there is a public defenders office for people who cannot afford the services of a lawyer. In scotland it is the pdso.

You seem to be fixated with this hourly rate thing-my dh does not get to keep the full £200 per hour he charges for his advice-I wish he bloody did!

Re the gp comment-how many times are we told that it is a vocation and how selfless gp's are? Well in my dh dealings with them he has had them refusing to help clients-their patients!-as they are haggling over what they are going to be paid! Dh deals with many unsavoury characters in his line of work-criminal defence solicitor-and he has said by far the most unpleasant,greediest people are gp's! Bet you wont want to hear that.....

What do GPs tend to charge per hour for this work?

Gp's for a standard gp report will charge roughly £100. However that is usually in legal aid cases. In private cases they can charge alot more-especially if their are an expert in their field.

So how many hours work does a standard report take?

I really have no idea. Please do not try and get on my case about this-as I said my dh is a lawyer and I have also worked in the legal field-believe me lawyers do alot of work for nothing!. I wish they were as greedy as people like to believe-I would love to be richer!

How much is it gp's charge to sign your passports nowadays?....

Anyhoo am off out now-going to see a show and go for champagne cocktails with my friends....

It was you who said

" Dh deals with many unsavoury characters in his line of work-criminal defence solicitor-and he has said by far the most unpleasant,greediest people are gp's!"

From what you have posted it seems like you dont think GPs are getting anything approaching a typical solicitors hourly rate for medico-legal work.
I think that is true. So not sure why they are being characterised as being unpleasant and greedy.

Im also surprised by the claim that 150k is the minimum GP income. I must know the wrong type of GP

Im not a GP btw.

In my defence I am a lawyer but as our work is funded by the government (legal aid) we do not charge by the hour and I do not ear the salary that private client lawyers earn.

We do a very small amount of private work but this is always on a fixed fee basis. It's only in very unusual circumstances it goes beyond that and the client would be pre-warned of that eventuality.

We ain't all fat cats. I live a very modest (but happy) life. We holidayed in the UK this year and my car was made in 2006. Not bad at all i know but I am no fat cat.

Your approach to all lawyers OP is wrong and on that basis YABU.

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

[falls about laughing]
[albeit with a hollow sound to it]

I am a partner in a small legal aid firm and I earn considerably less than the starting salary of most trainees in commercial firms. When DS2 comes along I won't be able to go back to work as my salary will be less than 2 sets of childcare even when DS1's free hours kick in at 3.

kungfu - despite what I said to you further upthread I do know lawyers get a bad press and it's often unfair.

(A friend of mine left the profession because of his disallusionment. He was early 30's. All that training for nothing...)

What do you think could change the public perception and improve lawyers career? Do you think the profession has a semi crisis on it's hands in terms of personal fulfilment as a solicitor?

Toothbrushthief - I don't think the public perception really matters. Everyone I know just gets on and does the job, the same way as they have always done, with the occasional eye roll and hollow laugh at quotes about "fat cat lawyers".

The government has decided that the criminal justice system can take cut after cut without falling apart and that it what they are doing. We are perilously close to the point where no firm undertaking standard legal aid work can actually break even, never mind make a profit, due to the incredibly low fixed fees, and work that isn't paid for. There are people leaving the profession in a steady stream and firms are closing all over the place. None of us went into this profession expecting to earn big money - we do it because it is the area of law we prefer - but we did expect to be able to keep working without the constant threat of our firms going bust. Most of us think that the government plans to do away with the bulk of legal aid sooner or later and that will be the end of it. The criminal justice system will be brought to its knees because of the vast numbers of unrepresented defendants trying to go through the court process, but hey, that won't be my problem as none of us will still be involved then.

I respect your opinion because you obviously have more insight than I do.

From the 'outside' the one experience I described, where fees rose seemingly for the sake of arguing, rather than because I wished to argue... makes me wonder if I had been funded more, would I have allowed the procrastination because it wasn't costing me. I have thought the govt has clamped down on legal aid because of some unscrupulous activity...or vexatious litigation funded by the legal aid system.

..and all solicitors are being caned because of this?

...and people go undefended because they cannot afford it

I'll shut up now :)

I am an equity partner in a top 50 commercial law firm. I do not earn £150k per year.

My exBIL was a GP in Nottinghamshire, he earned nearly twice what I do, and worked fewer hours. FWIW I have been working on a metter since I last posted, not finished yet but Ds woken up so that'll be tonight now.

Why do baby barrister and others keep asking me how much I earn and what I do etc? Why does this make a difference? I am interested in general opinions about how lawyers charge, the system of 'justice' etc. I was giving details of my personal experience but I was not seeking to personalise the debate.

You aren't seeking to personalise the debate? But it was you who specifically gave details of your claim, of how your compensation was eaten up with fees (hence hinting at your level of compensation) and later drip fed that you'd had a lot of this back.

People are asking what you earn because it is very relevant to your rant about the hourly rates and the total bill. Also all the comments about access to justice, the lack of sympathy for your position and the comments made by various people on this thread about average wages look rather different if, as I would guess by the hinted level of compensation, you earn well into six figures yourself.

If you wanted a debate that was not personal, you should have phrased your OP rather differently.

"Why do baby barrister and others keep asking me how much I earn and what I do etc? Why does this make a difference?"

Because you are calling lawyers greedy for having a charge-out rate of £400 an hour, yet you must be on a fairly hefty wedge yourself if you were able to pay £200k in fees and your claim was worth more than that.

If you want to rant about how much others charge/earn then by all means do, but you must see why people want to know what your position is? Unless you think your job is more 'worthy' and that you deserve your high salary whereas others don't...

Something about this doesn't add up. If you'd gone to Tribunal you wouldn't have got an award anywhere near as much as £200k even with unfair dismissal and the worst kind of discrimination pay out.

If you're looking at that kind of money surely the High Court is more likely? I have no clue about Scottish system but that's the case in England and Wales I think (haven't double checked it but off the top of my head).

There is a distinct lack of voluntary number quoting here.

It seems that the lawyers here are saying 'I don't earn a lot of money but I'm not going to tell you how much'

and at the same time you are saying

'it's quite normal to charge £350 an hour'.

I suspect there is a massive profit going into someone's profit, and I am perfectly prepared to believe that it's not going into the pockets of the solicitors posting on here. But where is it going? It doesn't cost that much to run a couple of phones, a secretary and an office suite, surely.

And this ties nicely in with GPs. What do GPs and lawyers have in common? They are primarily paid by the State, and have not until very recently been scrutinised in terms of what value for money they actually provide for the taxpayer.

I am a lawyer. I am 6 years' qualified and work in a small commercial firm in the north west. I do wills and probate and my full time salary is 32k. I only work 4 days a week so I get paid £25.6k. HTH realhousewife.

I have previously worked in a magic circle firm in the City (in a different practice area) earning a lot lot lot more. It didn't make me happy - I am not very money-motivated.