About these solicitors costs?!

[curiousgeorgie]

I've just relieved a bill from my solicitor and it is huge... Much bigger than we had anticipated.

Someone is trying to have contact with my children so it's a lengthy process... I get that we have hired a good solicitor but some of these costs seem to be taking the piss..

The day of our consultation they emailed us to say it was lovely to meet us, and have charged £30 for that email.

On the day of the first hearing I sent a message to say I was stuck in traffic and would be 10 minutes late.. ( to meet solicitor, not for court slot) they sent a message back saying 'no problem' and have charged £30 for it...

They asked me my opinion on sending a letter to the other party about something and I said no. They went on to send me 4 emails trying to convince me to do it, no again... But have been charged 120 for them...

My solicitor was out one day so we dealt with a different one with regards to a query, that's fine and should be charged, but when we went to court he came too and has billed us 1000 for 4 hours of his time, although he did nothing and I don't understand why he was there, as we already had our regular solicitor plus a barrister.

I kind of want to dispute this, but we have more court dates to come and I don't want bad feeling.. Plus, they're solicitors and surely can argue a lot better than we can!

AIBU??

Hope you don't need too much of a (if any) barrister's time.

They really know how to charge!

Oh god I know! 750 for the day!

Just my view - I'm happy with the hourly rate, I saw a few but they seemed the best... It was more the extra stuff that seemed a bit weird..

Yeah. £120 for 4 emails pedalling an idea you repeatedly said no to seems odd.

Aga - we instructed them late on so although we had one point of contact, another had to help us with a Cafcass statement as ours was in court that day.

Dame - the extras sound right? I'm not worried about the hourly rate.

£750 for the day is a decent rate! Not too high at all.

Also, for people suggesting a breakdown of costs, the OP must have one if she knows x email or y call was charged at a certain rate.

From your first post it sounds like you have a breakdown of each bit of work they are charging you for. If I were you I would go through the list crossing out or putting question marks beside things you don't think they should charge for - an email saying nothing more than "it was nice to meet you", for example.

I would then ask to discuss it with them (maybe over the phone; and make clear you don't expect to be charged for the discussion as you are querying their costs) so they can try to justify their charges. It might well turn out that some of the emails, for example, involved work behind the scenes which ended up as just a two-line email, but that won't necessarily be the case.

It shouldn't create bad feeling, and if your solictors act professionally it won't - they should be used to this kind of issue being raised by clients and should be prepared to consider reducing the bill if appropriate. If you look at the terms and conditions you got from them when you instructed them (probably in a letter), it should tell you who to contact to discuss queries about your bill and how to escalate it if their initial response isn't helpful.

Hope you get it sorted!

Geeez. Another reason I may reconsider not getting a divorce.

Fantissue - it's not apparently, they capped it at that for us, but we were literally in court for fifteen minutes the first day! Then it felt a lot!

what's your total bill?

I used a commercial firm of London lawyers once whose partner's charge out rate was £500 per hour. Emails from her Blackberry when I knew she was on the train or in a meeting or at home saying things like "Hi, can't speak now" or "can you send that email again I've lost it" were put on her bill at £50 sometimes £100 a time plus VAT. It is outrageous. The point of the hourly time recording system is not to log every second of the day but to charge for the advice that is provided in a client's case based on the skill and experience of the lawyer. If the email requires no skill or expertise and is simply administrative or a courtesy email that you haven't sought then I don't believe it should be charged for. You should identify where you think they are charging for work that you do not believe to be reasonable and discuss it with them. Generally, good solicitors will be very reasonable about it and adjust your bill accordingly. I think you should also ask you client partner to ensure that before you receive any future bills that they are reviewed and adjusted first for duplicated work and charges for advice that you didn't ask for. Good luck with your case.

Aga - we've only had 2 hearings so far but it's 4.6k

Ye Gods and little fishes. A thousand quid for turning up and sitting on your arse? I'm in the wrong business.

I wouldn't go haiku but limerick.

Thirty quid just for a message?
An in it there wasn't a sausage.
You are taking the piss,
So I'm telling you this:
You make Croesus look like Worzel Gummage.

I imagine the £30 an hour emails are due to the fact most solicitors record their time in blocks of six minutes. £250/hour plus VAT equates to £30 for a six minute block. This is the minimum unit of time that can be selected on timesheets so even if a task takes under six minutes it will be recorded in this way. Timesheets are then used to generate bills.

It's possible that the bill is being raised by a finance function and not properly reviewed by your legal team, who should work out which items can and cannot be passed on to you. Your legal team will also be looking to recover as much of their costs as possible so may chance their arm on a few items.

Hi curiousgeorgie,

I just read your post about solicitors costs, and the bill you received.

In fact, solicitors bills, are an exception in that there is actually separate recourse to have them assessed if you believe they are too high. Have a look at the link below which gives some information. You can also refer to the Solicitors Regulation authority website :

www.bedsonandchard.com/materials/supervisor/SCCO_Guide_To_Disputing_Own_Solicitors_Bill.pdf

and

www.sra.org.uk/consumers/using-solicitor/costs-legal-aid.page#asking

Request an itemised breakdown of your bill. This will detail each and every item charged, the time spent, and the cost. You may also ask to see your file under the data protection Act.

In the first instance, go through the file, cross reference what has been charged and see if you think each item is reasonable. Clearly this is subjective, but this is the exact process the Court would follow if it went to that stage. Reduce the items you feel are unreasonable and then write back to your solicitors with your proposals for reduction.

Be aware though that if you decide to proceed to a hearing about the costs-you must get the bill reduced by more than 20%. If you don't you will have to pay the solicitors reasonable costs spent on the detailed assessment. without knowing the full facts of your case I cannot say if this is likely although, the examples you mentioned should certainly be raised.

This process can be complex but if you really feel that they have overcharged it may be worth exploring. It may be of assistance if you have been sent costs estimates by the solicitors, to gauge if they have gone over this.

I am a costs drafter by profession and in reality agreement would be obtained after each side weighing up a number of factors such as the amount of legal costs involved, likely costs involved in dealing with the costs-dispute and litigation risk in going to Court.

I hope this helps.

Chris