Billing solicitors

Not sure if I should post here or in the Business forum....
I do a bit of work for solicitors, not my main job at all. But I find that they are generally very slow in paying me OR they pay me less than I asked for. In the latter case, they tell me (usually after several unanswered letters and phone calls) that the costs went to the Taxing Master and my fees were reduced! I'm told that I should be told by the solicitors when this is likely to happen so that I can justify my fees to the Legal Cost Accountants. But even if I write to the solicitors asking that they keep me informed, they don't. I'm ending up faced with a fait accompli - take the reduced amount ......and presumably be grateful for it. Does anyone know what I should do, or how I can get to the LCA before they reduce my fees? They never even justify the reduction to me.

I think this exact query was posted before, and I think I replied to it then. Anyway:

1. If the solicitor hires you, he\she is liable to pay your agreed fee.

2. If the solicitor retains you on behalf of joe bloggs (as is more common), then joe bloggs is liable to pay your agreed fee.

3. A successful plaintiff (usually in a compensation claim) will be awarded their costs. Sometimes, they will be awarded less than their costs; for example, you might bill €1,000 and the Taxing Master might only award your customer €800 toward this. You are not obliged to accept the smaller sum - the costs awarded belong to the Plaintiff; the liability to pay you is the liability of the Plaintiff.

4. Many people who do a lot of court work understand the taxing of costs; In some cases, implicitly or explicitly, they agree that their fee will be reduced if the amount awarded does not cover it. However, I would consider it very bad form indeed for a solicitor to unilaterally impose a reduction on the amount remitted to you, as seems to be happening. Mind you, if you have tolerated this regularly, it might be that you have implicitly agreed to it. If you don't like this, get a proper letter of engagement template done and issue it at the start of each job for a solicitor so as to avoid future misunderstanding.

The important point is that you are under no obligation whatever to justify your fees to the Taxing Master. The person who hired you has to justify these fees if they want to recover the money from the other side. The issue of whether they justify the fees or not does not alter their liability to you to pay whatever fee they have explicitly or implicitly agreed to pay.

So is this effectively theft by the solicitor? Should Gordanus resubmit a statement now showing the outstanding amounts due?

"So is this effectively theft by the solicitor? "

No; If the solicitor took money destined for Gordanus and kept it for himself, that would be theft. In this case, the solicitor presumably acts for a client. The solicitor has made a part payment of his client's liability to Gordanus - being the amount paid over by the other side after costs were settled.

The client is still liable to pay the remainder of Gordanus' bill. For the solicitor to be able to pay the remainder, he\she would have had to make a deduction from the client's compensation cheque (which issues a lot sooner than the cheque for legal costs) to make provision for shortfalls of this type. Solicitors are, of course, reluctant to make such deductions because of the very bad publicity (much of it groundless - some admittedly justified) about deductions from clients compensation payments.

In short, the client may well owe Gordanus money OR Gordanus may by his conduct implicitly have accepted that the lower sum awarded on taxation of costs would be taken in full settlement. It seems clear that Gordanus never explicitly agreed to this approach (and there is no reason he should). If he doesn't want this to happen anymore, he should make it explicitly clear in a suitable letter of engagement.

The poor oul' solicitor can't win. If he makes the deduction to keep Gordanus covered, he gets it in the ear from Joe Duffy. If he doesn't make the deduction, he gets it in the ear anyway when Gordanus is left short on Taxation of costs. Better communication all round would seem to be the solution, and it must be acknowledged that many solicitors (myself included) fall down in this area. It is indefensible that - having dealt with several solicitors - Gordanus didn't know what I have set out above (indefensible on the part of the solicitors, that is)

thank you very much. Looks like they have been misleading me....I'll be getting on to them! Thanks you MOB and at the weekend too!