Donate to Remove ads

Got a credit card? use our Credit Card & Finance Calculators

Thanks to johnstevens77,Bhoddhisatva,scotia,Anonymous,Cornytiv34, for Donating to support the site

Another victory for the lawyers

including wills and probate
Clitheroekid
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2858
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:58 pm
Has thanked: 1385 times
Been thanked: 3771 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#418480

Postby Clitheroekid » June 9th, 2021, 9:00 pm

brightncheerful wrote:Currently I am advising a tenant of a small shop whose landlord has opposed renewal of the lease. the client needing a solicitor asked me to recommend a firm of solicitors for the proceedings. I recommended a reputable firm. The solicitor dealing is recently qualified and relatively inexperienced so I have ensured the person's boss is supervising. The tenant is not objecting to the opposition and the only issue is the amount of compensation. The landlord is trying to wriggle out of paying so so likely the matter will have to go to court even though strictly that is unnecessary. The legal costs at £250 an hour, plus vat and disbursements, are mounting and are close to the point at which it could pay my client to waive claim rather than pursue. Ridiculous.

Why is this even being argued about? Surely the amount of compensation is fixed at a sum equal to the rateable value of the premises (or 2x RV if the tenant's been there for more than 14 years)?

Clitheroekid
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2858
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:58 pm
Has thanked: 1385 times
Been thanked: 3771 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#418482

Postby Clitheroekid » June 9th, 2021, 9:19 pm

richlist wrote:My very limited experience of the High Court & Appeal Courts a few years back was a real eyeopener. I remember we had to get insurance to cover us if we lost the case and the premium was based on our chance of winning. Why can't other courts operate in the same way ?

All civil courts operate in the same way. The large majority of cases are heard in the County Courts, and you can get `After The Event' insurance to cover your costs if you lose, irrespective of which court is hearing the case (except for small claims).

However, the premiums are often so high that even if you win by the time you've deducted the cost of the premium and your own lawyer's success fee you may think it was hardly worth the effort.

JamesMuenchen wrote:How about insurance?

In Germany its pretty standard to have your own personal legal insurance and 3rd party indemnity. Not a UK thing?

Yes, it is a UK thing, in that many people have legal expenses insurance bundled into their motor / house contents policies. However, it's essentially a means of getting leads for profitable cases that can be given to the insurance company's panel solicitors, who pay hefty subscriptions to receive these tasty titbits.

Although you're legally entitled to use your own solicitor the insurers will not tell you this, and they will do everything they can to make you use their panel solicitor.

And if there's no money in the case for the lawyers the insurers will do their best to wriggle out of covering the claim.

Most business insurance policies will also include legal expenses cover, though the same principles apply.

It is possible to buy freestanding `proper' legal expenses insurance, but hardly anyone does so.

Perhaps the difference between the UK and Germany is that until relatively recently the government here would assist people to pursue viable cases through the legal aid system, so that such insurance wasn't really necessary. But they then decided, in their stupidity, that no win no fee was better.

As might have been expected, they made a complete hash of it, creating a licence to print money for both lawyers and a new breed of parasite, the `claims management companies', so that what had been a relatively modest backwater of the legal profession became the corrupt and fraudulent monster that exists today.

brightncheerful
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2210
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 4:00 pm
Has thanked: 424 times
Been thanked: 800 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#418645

Postby brightncheerful » June 10th, 2021, 3:36 pm

Clitheroekid wrote:
brightncheerful wrote:Currently I am advising a tenant of a small shop whose landlord has opposed renewal of the lease. the client needing a solicitor asked me to recommend a firm of solicitors for the proceedings. I recommended a reputable firm. The solicitor dealing is recently qualified and relatively inexperienced so I have ensured the person's boss is supervising. The tenant is not objecting to the opposition and the only issue is the amount of compensation. The landlord is trying to wriggle out of paying so so likely the matter will have to go to court even though strictly that is unnecessary. The legal costs at £250 an hour, plus vat and disbursements, are mounting and are close to the point at which it could pay my client to waive claim rather than pursue. Ridiculous.


Why is this even being argued about? Surely the amount of compensation is fixed at a sum equal to the rateable value of the premises (or 2x RV if the tenant's been there for more than 14 years)?


Only if the circumstances are straightforward. In this case, the landlord won't believe the tenant has been there for more than 14 years. We can prove it but…

Clitheroekid
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2858
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:58 pm
Has thanked: 1385 times
Been thanked: 3771 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#418681

Postby Clitheroekid » June 10th, 2021, 6:08 pm

brightncheerful wrote:Only if the circumstances are straightforward. In this case, the landlord won't believe the tenant has been there for more than 14 years. We can prove it but…

If you can prove it then I hope your client's solicitor has made a Part 36 Offer, which should bring the matter to a swift conclusion!

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#427821

Postby Novoiceleft » July 15th, 2021, 10:27 am

brightncheerful wrote:

In my view, legal costs have become out of control because of charging by the hour and with no cap on the total amount.


Having recently been involved with matrimonial lawyers, the really dispiriting part is the way they also charge for every individual email in and out (in addition to their time). It was £30 per email in my case (this was not London). So if you have a quick email exchange with your lawyer along the lines of:

"When are you expecting to receive the notification?"
"Probably by the end of the week"
"Will you let me know immediately when it arrives ?"
"Yes, I will do that"

Runs up a bill of £120. So therefore, the lawyer and the client avoid that kind of dialogue and communication is destroyed.

From the law firm profitability point of view, it seems that lots of short email exchanges like that each day could result in a single lawyer earning more than their working hours per day.

NoVoice

pochisoldi
Lemon Slice
Posts: 941
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:33 am
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 462 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#427838

Postby pochisoldi » July 15th, 2021, 11:34 am

Novoiceleft wrote:Having recently been involved with matrimonial lawyers, the really dispiriting part is the way they also charge for every individual email in and out (in addition to their time). It was £30 per email in my case (this was not London). So if you have a quick email exchange with your lawyer along the lines of:

"When are you expecting to receive the notification?"
"Probably by the end of the week"
"Will you let me know immediately when it arrives ?"
"Yes, I will do that"

Runs up a bill of £120. So therefore, the lawyer and the client avoid that kind of dialogue and communication is destroyed.


The reason for the £30 is to "concentrate the mind"

The above exchange could have been easily mitigated to £60:
To lawyer: "When are you expecting to receive the notification? Will you let me know immediately when it arrives ?"
From lawyer: "Probably by the end of the week, I will let you know when I get it"

If the lawyer then proceeded to charge another £30 for telling you about something that he had to tell you anyway, then that's double charging and open to challenge. As far as I'm concerned, sending a letter or email informing the client and/or requesting information/instruction from a client is covered by the £125 for the "30 minutes" they arrived at when they rounded up the actual 10 minutes they spent dealing with the matter...

Novoiceleft
Lemon Pip
Posts: 98
Joined: March 15th, 2017, 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 10 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#427858

Postby Novoiceleft » July 15th, 2021, 1:00 pm

Sure. That was just a fictitious example.

One learns very quickly to concentrate communication into fewer emails - or not communicate at all. "Lack of Communication" is one of the main reasons behind upheld complaints to the Legal Ombudsman.

But sometimes its out of your control. In my matter, a simple form had to be filled in for the transfer of a property. A single page form that contained an address, a sum of money, two signatures and two tick boxes. It was prepared by the conveyancer, approved by the lenders solicitor, then sent to two matrimonial lawyers, who each felt they had to refer it to their firm's property lawyers. One of whom made a small, trivial correction. So it had to go right round the loop again to all 6 lawyers. A single page form took about 40-50 emails in total and a bill of £2,000.

When you see that sort of nonsense first hand, you can see how its possible to rack up the kind of bills mentioned in the original post.

NoVoice

UncleEbenezer
The full Lemon
Posts: 10691
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 8:17 pm
Has thanked: 1459 times
Been thanked: 2965 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#427914

Postby UncleEbenezer » July 15th, 2021, 5:49 pm

pochisoldi wrote:If the lawyer then proceeded to charge another £30 for telling you about something that he had to tell you anyway, then that's double charging and open to challenge.


That seems to me severely discriminatory practice.

That is, discrimination against ordinary people, who would be terrified to challenge a lawyer and expect a likely outcome would be to turn £30 into £30k. If it's true, it's one more example of how the law is a game for the rich.

Clitheroekid
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2858
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:58 pm
Has thanked: 1385 times
Been thanked: 3771 times

Re: Another victory for the lawyers

#428199

Postby Clitheroekid » July 16th, 2021, 9:24 pm

Novoiceleft wrote:In my matter, a simple form had to be filled in for the transfer of a property. A single page form that contained an address, a sum of money, two signatures and two tick boxes. It was prepared by the conveyancer, approved by the lenders solicitor, then sent to two matrimonial lawyers, who each felt they had to refer it to their firm's property lawyers. One of whom made a small, trivial correction. So it had to go right round the loop again to all 6 lawyers. A single page form took about 40-50 emails in total and a bill of £2,000.

If that’s what actually happened it’s disgraceful, and you should have refused to pay the bill.

But it vividly illustrates one of the curses of modern lawyering that’s been brought about by our regulators (and, it has to be said, enthusiastically welcomed by many lawyers) namely the ludicrous degree of specialisation.

When I trained most solicitors were general practitioners, able to turn their hands to most things. Of course there were specialist firms then but they were in genuinely specialised fields. So work that needed that level of expertise would be referred to such a firm. Alternatively, a barrister might be brought in to advise.

In the example given there would probably have been one solicitor who prepared the document and one for the other party involved. Lenders rarely used to employ their own solicitor, relying on the borrower’s solicitor to protect their interests.

But the Law Society in their ‘wisdom’ decided to promote the idea that law was desperately complex and that it was only possible to practise in one area. Part of the thinking was to build up the mystique and so justify higher charges. Sadly, this hogwash was swallowed hook, line and sinker, and the days of the GP solicitor were numbered.

The sheer stupidity of this argument can be seen when one compares solicitors with doctors. Despite doctors dealing with genuinely life or death situations the GP is still the norm. If you go to see your doctor with a sore shoulder he won’t turn you away on the basis he only deals with digestive problems. They will, of course, refer you to a consultant if necessary, just as we used barristers, but in most cases they can deal with it themselves.

The worst consequence of this is that PI insurers have also fallen for the Law Society propaganda so they now view GP solicitors as the spawn of the devil and either refuse to insure them or charge such massive premiums as to make the practice unviable.

And the net effect has been that many small, local, general practices have been forced out of business or been taken over by large practices that want to centralise everything, leaving many towns without any legal practitioners at all.


Return to “Legal Issues (Practical)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests