Law Firm Charges Client To Wrap A Box Of Chocolates
Received in this week from one of our readers in Australia. Thankyou we love to document the horrors of the billable hour. We're wondering idf all other business shouldn't start charging law firms in a similar way. Eg restaurants charge for the meal and the time it takes to cook it, newsagents charge for the time it takes to take money across the counter and put it in the till etc etc
Here's what he recently came across -
I don’t know if you are following the keddies costing saga, but this article
http://lawyerslawyer.net/2011/11/24/the-keddies-overcharging-civil-case-no-1/ had me chuckling.
Reminds me of the time that Stephen Roche of Shine Lawyers (formerly Shine Roche McGowan until this little saga)was done for gross overcharging.
https://applications.lsc.qld.gov.au/documents/RocheQCA03-469.pdf :
[16] The respondent conceded that he was the person responsible for determining the charges to be made. The basis on which the Tribunal determined this charge unfavourably to the respondent concerned charges levied for work done by paralegals. The charge of $300 per hour, for paralegals, was described by the Tribunal as “unusually high”. Those persons carried out about half of the work done on the file. A substantial amount of that work was of “a fairly mundane nature.” The Tribunal gave examples of that, including, as notable examples, 12 minutes of charged-for time spent wrapping a box of chocolates to be given to a reporting doctor’s secretary by way of thanks for facilitating the correcting of a report, and another 12 minutes spent discussing arrangements for the purchase of the gift – for which momentous engagements the respondent was on my calculation billed $156. The Tribunal expressed the following conclusions:
No fairminded practitioner would be justified in charging his or her client at what the Tribunal regards as an unusually high rate across
the large number of hours involved including the significant time on the mundane matters of the kind described. As to quantum of the rate and as to the hours involved, the amount charged by the practitioner for the work done by paralegals amounts to gross overcharging of a substantial kind. The overcharging was substantial by reason of the fee rate having increased effectively from $100.00 an hour plus care and consideration of approximately 25% (say $125/hour) to $300.00 an hour (GST inclusive) plus 30% uplift for paralegals’ work and it is also substantial because of the number of hours of paralegals’ work charged for. The Tribunal finds Charge 2 proved.
The Tribunal finds that the time charges made for paralegals’ work were substantially above what any reasonable solicitor would contemplate as being a proper charge. The Tribunal cannot accept that any solicitor acting properly toward his or her client could have charged for the time spent by unqualified staff at the rate charged by the practitioner over the extensive time involved. The Tribunal finds that the practitioner’s proved conduct in this regard as amounting to professional misconduct.”
