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?

Ha ha ha ha! Love it Seabright!

Yeah, but who needs free advice when you can rack up £200k in legal fees and then act as a litigant person and settle?

I have now reported this thread to MNHQ as it is clear that the OP was not seeking to have a debate or discussion, but to be obnoxious and offensive and make personal attacks. I am particularly offended by the statement 'RIP' - that is just a disgusting thing to say to total strangers on the basis that you don't like what they've said on a public forum. I hope the thread gets taken down, but not holding my breath.

((sigh))

I find it completely bizarre that someone who worked in the legal profession seemed to fail to keep a rein on legal costs. Afraid I'm rather about the OP's story now.

Sorry if you misunderstood emsyj, I was suggesting that the legal profession was under threat and doomed in certain respects - hence the RIP. It certainly wasn't intended to be anything more sinister. I am not bitter at all, I just had a bad experience, that's all. However, since I have obviously upset several people, this will be my last post.

Calvert - I did realise I was going over old ground somewhat . I'd also assumed that when the OP talked about confidentiality she had actually signed a clause as part of her settlement - I damn well would have advised her employer to have one if I'd been acting for them at that kind of money.

DMAGA - You may now be self employed and have pay that is wholly results orientated, but you were clearly an employee until a year or two ago. And as a City employee, I very much doubt you were totally results paid.

I would agree with emsyj - you have made some very unpleasant comments about a whole profession - and about them as individuals rather than in a professional capacity. Whilst you may not agree with the standard hourly charging structure of a law firm, your '400 is a weekly wage to some people FFS' looks rather 'high horse' when you realise that your own earnings were at least £2000 per week. Probably a lot more.

However, I am going to try and engage with your point about hourly charging directly. An hourly rate is not inherently money grabbing. When a mechanic looks at your car and offers a price, it is because they can assess how much work is involved. When a lawyer looks at a case like yours, they have no idea how much work is involved. It depends on far too many variable factors - mostly around the behaviour of both parties. The profession does realise that new charging methods are needed, and actually is generally moving away from hourly charging where it can, but it needs massively sophisticated costs modelling and we are a long way away from doing it for litigation. It is something which is coming in more for project based work - transactions, commercial projects, etc.

If firms offered a fixed fee for litigation, they would have to ensure that they were balancing out those cases which became protracted and complex by charging more for simple cases. That is essentially what fixed fee work is where the size of the project is very variable - it is making those with simple cases subsidise those with complex ones.

If they went for no win no fee, your case almost certainly would not have been taken on. No win, no fee relies on firms being able to take a fairly 'cookie cutter' approach to the work, to make it financially viable. It would also go down the route of personal injury - those firms encourage lots of claims with small settlements to take a cut each time. Many of those are nuisance settlements. Those with complex cases can't get taken on because the firm knows that there is too great a risk that they won't receive a pay out and that the amount of free work will upset the financial model.

So, what charging structure do you think should have been adopted? So far you have just talked about fixed fee, but that would make the majority of people pay more to balance out the claims like yours.

Ah well, cross post and apparently I have missed you.

The legal profession this, the legal profession that.

It is not a homogenous mass. No, "the legal profession" is not under threat.

Legal aid work is under threat. A non-elitist bar is under threat. Grass roots legal advice is under threat.

Not the whole bloody profession.

I am really surprised that someone who has worked in this profession is so incapable of making distinctions between very different branches of "the legal profession".

And what Ribena said.

I worked in a legal aid practice chasing bills/prepping accounts.

Firstly, Legal Aid is different to Commercial firms, Legal Aid firms don't charge £400 ph, it's half, at least.

Secondly, I fully believe Poorly Lawyer, I arranged account sheets for the last law firm I worked in, and the partners were splitting £70k between two partners. Which is a crap wage for a partner of a law firm.

DH was a Criminal Duty Solicitor and was on £22K. Five days a week and two days on call (plus Saturday court too).

DH and I believe that the Criminal Defence system will evolve into a Public Prosecutor and Public Defendant system, similar to the US. Meaning a lot of law firms closing down, and people losing jobs all over the place.

I don't disagree that there are terrible lawyers, I took over my mothers conveyancing affairs after a terrible firm had conduct - we complained to the Law Society, and the firm got closed down, but solicitors do get struck off if they have acted in a way which brings the profession into disrepute. Don't just complain about the monetary issue, complain about the work they did if you feel it was unjust.

Or you could just add them to this website

Plus I agree with Kungfupannda et al, who are much more eloquent than I.

supermum (if you're still out there) I completely agree with what you're saying about legal aid and lawyers being complicit in using it for years.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, there is a recession and thousands of people are being made redundant. My partner signed on for the first time in 25 years, this morning. It's tough for everyone.

Interesting that insurance costs for legal firms have gone up - I wonder if the legal aid review is having an effect on this?

I'm always up for a discussion, but the defensiveness on here has been a bit OTT.

For those of you in the profession - it's up to YOU to do something about it if you are overworked and underpaid or unsatisfied. It's a good time to make change happen. But perhaps it's not in your nature to protest...

I don't think the level of defensiveness has been OTT when you take into account the sort of sweeping attacks and vile, personal comments that have been made.

I personally am 'doing something about it' -I'm retraining so that I can get out of the legal field for good. Many of my lawyer friends are doing the same. Is that a good thing? Who knows.

Ironically, the only way our firm can do something about it, is to put our hourly rates up.

We won't because we value our client base, and they value us...

Time for another hollow laugh, I think.

The legal aid part of the profession has been trying everything within its power to "do something about it" for years now. There have been consultations, the results of which have been ignored. There have been reports which have been ignored. There have been protests which have been ignored. There has been extensive work by a committee (of which I was a very lowly member) containing some extremely high profile members of the profession - their work was ignored.

There was a series of meetings, ranging from round table meetings with members of the LSC to panel meetings with the movers and shakers behind the cuts. At the last big meeting I went to in Westminster one extremely prominent government representative had to pulled up for actually laughing in the face of a very well respected solicitor who was acting as chair. At a round table meeting an LSC representative said "ha ha, good one" when I pointed out that their proposed tendering system was effectively ebay for legal aid. He seemed surprised when I pointed out I wasn't joking.

And none of this ongoing work has "pay us more money as individuals" anywhere in it. We are trying to get the message across that if they keep making these cuts no-one will be able to undertake this work as it will be loss-making. And that will be disastrous for the justice system. Leaving out the risk of miscarriages of justice/access to justice, the simple maths will not work out. Proper representation weeds out a lot of unnecessary and protracted trial processes. If someone isn't properly advised they are likely to take their chances at a pointless trial. Trials are expensive. They take police officers out of their main work, they take witnesses away from work and require expenses to be paid, they take up court time and require court staff to be in attendance, as well as generating paperwork for CPS staff and police.

The maths doesn't work. This is not an area where cuts save money. Cuts in one area cost money in other areas. The current pattern of cuts is not sustainable. We have been fighting this for years and we are still fighting it.

Unfortunately, with hostile attitudes and spectacular lack of understanding of how the system works, like that displayed on this thread over and over again, I really don't see us getting the message across.

Like Reindeerbollocks I see us heading for a public defender service (which incidentally has been piloted and shown to be an expensive failure) or the complete abolition of legal aid.

Well, there's always the Bar pro bono unit.

They'll be busy!

Yes, of course there is a recession on, and of course firms are closing down, lawyers and support staff being made redundant all over the place. duh!

I'm always up for a discussion, but the defensiveness on here has been a bit OTT.
Well I think most people are going to get defensive if they are called names that generalise an entire profession. Especially when the basis of the insults is such blatant nonsense and misinformation. I know shockingly bad dentists, doctors, teachers, mp's (sorry couldn't help myself!).... the list is endless. IT does not mean that every teacher is shite! So don't generalise and you won't get people's backs up like that.
Anyway you want to argue with lawyers... all it tells me is that they are pretty good at what they do (ps I am NOT a lawyer just humble old Legal Support staff)

For those of you in the profession - it's up to YOU to do something about it if you are overworked and underpaid or unsatisfied. It's a good time to make change happen. But perhaps it's not in your nature to protest...

As others have said many have left the profession either because they are unhappy, worked to death, have no work/life balance etc. but generally this happens in high pressure city firms. Then on the other side they are leaving the profession because the general public think they should work for nothing or legal-aid's absolutely insulting rates - so they too are leaving the profession as they cannot afford to stay in it and fight the publics fight for sweet f-all.

Oh yes, the competition threat. When they tried to bring in competitive tendering they said we would be acting as a cartel if we all refused to bid or bid the same price. One fairly outspoken member of the profession stood up at a meeting and said 'fine, we're a cartel. What do you propose to do about it?'

There was a bit of bluster but strangely no answer forthcoming. Competitive tendering was the one fight we sort-of won. I think they finally got their heads round the idea that they simply couldn't make us act as age ts of our own destruction.

I personally am 'doing something about it' -I'm retraining so that I can get out of the legal field for good. Many of my lawyer friends are doing the same. Is that a good thing? Who knows.

Emsy that's not doing something about it, that's escaping the system. I meant trying to change the system to ensure it is more favourable to both the general public and to individual solicitors - as opposed to big business. You knew that's what I meant, surely?

baby - were you contravening the Competition Act or not?

I'm not generalising about solictors and calling them names. Perhaps some of you are generalising about non-solicitors on this thread? What I'd really like is some straight answers to some straight questions.

kungfu you have given a detailed account of the LProf's support of legal aid cuts protests. I was there too, as a victim of the cuts, but am a nonentity in terms of power to make any changes.

BUT - if LA is such an 'insulting rate', why are you fighting to maintain it? How lucrative is legal aid to you really? Or did you protest to 'fight the public's fight', in the honourable way I would expect (albeit naiively) professionals to do and are prepared to accept thes poor rates because you have belief in the common good?

You may not be name-calling but you have made comments like "It's precisely because you guys are so deluded about your inflated salaries that legal aid has been cut so severely" which I think you must now accept is both a generalisation and inaccurate.

And what straight questions have not been answered? Straight questions like "how much do you earn?" which I and others have answered entirely openly.

I am really not sure what your issue is to be honest, or who it is with. You have made comments about legal aid, big business and all sorts of things. As I have said numerous times, these different areas of law really have nothing in common beyond falling under the umbrella term of "the legal profession".

A legal aid lawyer accepting that enough is enough and buggering off out of the profession isn't anything to do with vast charge-out rates, and someone in a big firm working to try to reduce the cost to private clients has no bearing whatsoever on whether the legal aid system continues to operate.

I am also highly likely to get out of the profession in the not-too distant future. I probably won't be going back after this next baby. I have done everything that I personally can do in support of what seems to be an utterly lost cause and I am afraid I am not prepared to pay two sets of childcare that cost more than my salary, in order to hang on in a loss-making profession in the vain hope that someone might finally listen to what we have been saying for years. There are no other jobs where people are expected to keep ploughing on out of the goodness of their hearts when they can't actually earn a living as a firm or as an individual, so why would you possibly think that we should do it?