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High Court rejects woman’s case over ‘excessive’ legal bill

Judge said result of separation proceedings coloured woman’s opinion that solicitor alleged charged too much

The review committee of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority last year upheld a decision that the woman's solicitor had not charged excessive fees

Wed Jun 14 2023 - 20:33

A woman who claimed she ended up with an “excessive” legal bill of more than €232,000 after contentious high-net-value family law and related court proceedings has lost a High Court case over the fees.

The woman went to court seeking to overturn a determination of the review committee of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) last year upholding a decision that her solicitor had not charged excessive fees.

The woman, who cannot be identified, was involved in a family law case against her husband that eventually took eight days at trial in the High Court and where she won “significant reliefs”.

Mr Justice Anthony Barr said that while the solicitor’s fee note related only to the family law case, it was one of a number of proceedings in which the solicitor acted for the woman.

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The judge said the woman was deeply unhappy with the result she got in her separation proceedings.

It was this unhappiness, he said, that coloured her strongly held opinion that the solicitor did not provide adequate services when acting for her in that litigation and that she allegedly charged excessive fees.

Dismissing the woman’s appeal, the judge said he was satisfied the review committee did not err in finding that the solicitor had provided adequate legal services in the course of that litigation.

He was not satisfied any significant error had been shown to exist in the determination of the committee.

Mr Justice Barr said the woman complained bitterly about how the outcome of the judicial separation proceedings had not been as good as she had anticipated.

“She stated that her life had been ruined as a result of the combined efforts of the legal representatives engaged by her and those acting on behalf of her husband. She stated that the final straw which would destroy her life had been the bill that had been presented by her solicitor in August 2020, charging what she regarded as an exorbitant sum, which was far in excess of anything that she had expected to pay at the conclusion of the proceedings,” the judge said

Mr Justice Barr said it appeared the woman had “conflated many aspects of her litigation and the unhappy ending of her marriage and a separate land dispute in arriving at the conclusion that she has been greatly injured in life and that it was all the fault of the solicitor, who acted for her in the judicial separation proceedings”. That view, the judge said, was unfounded both in law and in fact.

The woman was in 2017 given by the solicitor a brief fee of €30,000 plus VAT. She was also informed that if the matter were to proceed to court, there would be a daily fee of €3,500 plus VAT and outlay to “third parties”, such as senior and junior counsel and any experts engaged.

Two years later the woman signed an undertaking in relation to the fees that would be incurred at the hearing of the family law proceedings, which were due to commence.

The undertaking stated it had been explained to her that senior counsel would charge a €9,000 plus VAT brief fee to deal with her case and €2,500, plus VAT, for every day that it ran in the High Court.

Junior counsel was to charge a brief fee of €6,000, plus VAT and €2,000 plus VAT for every day that it ran before the court.

The forensic accountant was expected to charge in the region of €6,500, plus VAT.

Judgment was given in the family law case in May 2020 and the legal bill was sent in August.

Mr Justice Barr said the solicitor charged an instruction fee of €36,000, together with fees ranging from €1,000 to €2,500 for four motions, plus attendance fees of €450 in respect of 17 separate attendances at the High Court on various dates, along with attendance fees of €3,200 for each of the days that the action was at hearing before the High Court in 2019. The total of the fees, excluding VAT, charged by the solicitor amounted to €76,500.

The remainder of the bill concerned €29,000 in respect of senior counsel, €21,050 for one junior counsel, €31,450 for the second junior counsel, €2,900 for the auctioneer, €30,375 for the forensic accountant, and €400 in respect of the agricultural valuation. The total of the outlays came to €115,175, excluding VAT.

The total VAT chargeable in respect of the solicitor’s fees and the outlays came to €43,970.75. This amounted to a total bill of €235,645 with deductions for money previously paid, making the final bill €232,920.

The woman contended the solicitor had agreed at the outset to charge a fee of €30,000 and she claimed there was no basis for the fee note she was presented at the conclusion of the proceedings.

The solicitor to the LSRA and the review committee contended she had never agreed a fixed fee of €30,000 and it had been made clear about various outlays.

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