Solicitor’s bill
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DazedInPontoon
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If it's not already itemised how are they arriving at the final figure to bill the client?
There are lots of 'quick and dirty' ways of making a reasonable fee estimate that you can safely stand over.
1. Take a look at your case folder. If it contains, say, 200 documents and if you assume that each document attracts only your minimum chargeable amount of time (say 0.2 Hrs) then you are are very sure of 40 billable hours. At €250/Hr. that's €10k.
2. If you have a case management system, take a look at your activity log. This will be a mix of billable and non-billable items. From experience you know that on average 100 logged activities will contain maybe 75 billable ones. So 300 logged items is circa 225 billable items.
Taking your activities into a formal bill is a slow and methodical task: most legal software packages are based on international billing standards and the format prescribed by law in Ireland usually requires manual input and oversight. On the other hand preparing a rough but reliable estimate is easy, and if a client is happy with the rough estimate it can benefit both solicitor and client to agree a figure on this basis.
I dunno. Doesn’t sound right.
Ultimately, it seems like that while a solicitor has obligations to a client in terms of clarifying the basis for a fee charged, you let it be known that compliance with these pesky obligations is going to cost the client more. You assure them that while the amount charged may make them weep, it actually represents a discount for which they should be grateful and it’s in their best interests to take the hand off you.
Sounds like the basis for a game show.
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I'm interested to see that the solicitor in this case appears to have calculated a round figure that includes the element of VAT that s/he won't receive! The OP informs us that the hourly fee quoted is €300 - presumably this is the rate before VAT is added?
The 'rounded' figure of €10,000 means that the solicitor will receive €8,130 net, which in turn suggests that the solicitor spent about 27 hours - or less than 4 days - working on this complicated case!
Cheap at the price; pay the man and move on!
(Disclaimer: the foregoing is based largely on assumptions and may bear no association whatsoever with reality!)
What was the gist of their response to your request?
Did they ultimately provide you with a more detailed breakdown?
If not, what was their reasoning?
...
The process I have described is not at all the same as what you have taken from my comments.
When you add a regulatory or compliance burden to any process, you increase the cost. People don't need to be told this. It is obvious. It is utterly commonplace for solicitors to recover less than the full vale of the time spent on a file.
When the circumstances warrant, there is nothing at all wrong in having a dialogue with the client to say, in essence
"Let's do some back of envelope calculations here. .... So...you're into me for €10k for sure. If we drill down it's going to get to €12k or more, but I'm gonna share the pain with you on this one. If you are happy to pay the €10k, I'm happy to settle at that ".
That is not the same thing at all as just presenting a figure and saying " it's this" (which is what seems to have happened to OP)
That’s not really the point. Compliance is a requirement on many businesses. It’s non-negotiable - an overhead that should be priced into the cost of doing business.
There’s a certain irony that members of the legal community feel so comfortable circumventing their obligations. It seems to be the professional equivalent of “doing a job for cash”.
Nope. Not at all. Compliance is non negotiable. The form that this compliance may take is negotiable -and either way it must be documented. It is perfectly permissible to make an agreement as to the total costs that will be paid and to document that agreement. To quote the legislation:
(6) Where an agreement referred to in subsection (5) concerns all of the legal costs that are payable by the client to the legal practitioner for legal services provided in relation to the matter concerned, an invoice prepared by the legal practitioner containing a summary of the costs and outlays pursuant to the agreement, together with a copy of the agreement, shall constitute a bill of costs of the purposes of this section.
Pinoy adventure
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I don't think that's a fair characterisation of the process I have described. If you have a client who knows and trusts that you are not overcharging, and if you are genuinely giving a discount, what on earth is wrong with agreeing to settle things on that basis? Or you may have a reasonably sophisticated client who has a very good understanding of the legal process and he or she may set a budget for steps 1-6 inclusive ( this is in fact what many insurance companies do with their solicitors). That client does not care if Discovery or Defence or Counterclaim takes you 3 hours or 13 hours to prepare. They will agree to pay €X per task.
Distinctions of this sort are commonplace in many markets, certainly not unique to the law industry. Some construction resources are paid for on the basis of an agreed sum. Some are paid for on day rates. Does that make a nonsense of the work of the contract manager on a construction site? Of course not.
Ideally by balancing out "everyone shares the pain" files with "everyone gets a bit of jam" files. The practice of law has more variability than many other lines of business. Balance is important.
A few years ago my surgeon cut me open and fiddled around inside with a vital organ or two, yanked out a bit of vein (or artery) put in a another one before stitching me up again. I think he may have cracked a rib or too as well.
Afterwards, he informed me that the procedure had been a success and sent me on a bill for a few grand.
Strangely, I didn't feel the need to ask him for an itemised bill. Presumably you would have?
That depends.
Had you the opportunity to discuss a bill of costs? Or did he (depending on the organ) literally or figuratively have you by the goolies, in which case one would have no option but to pay?
The analogy isn’t appropriate.
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The governing legislation is a bit of a fig leaf.
On the face of it, it would seem like that’s its purpose is to ensure that a customer is provided with a detailed bill of costs except in circumstances where a fee has been negotiated in advance.
The reality is that the fee is agreed after the work has been completed at which point the customer has no real bargaining capacity and has to accept the lesser of two otherwise unpalatable options.
I don't think that paying in full what you owe a solicitor (or indeed any service provider), based on rates agreed at the outset can fairly be described as an unpalatable option. Bargaining should be done at the start, just like in any commercial relationship. If, whether before or after the job is finished, you are offered a discount, well then most ( but certainly not all) clients are happy to take it. For some clients (such as HSE) an audit trail is more important; those clients must receive detailed itemised bills and must pay full whack. This is all part and parcel of the very ordinary normal conduct of business that exists in many marketplaces. It is not improper or anti-consumer at all.
I agree but, in reality, how often does pre agreement happen? I’m not having a go at you personally @MOB but i’d genuinely be interested to know.
My understanding of the client relationship is that they engage a solicitor, trust him/her to do whatever is necessary and have a near conniption when presented with the bill. Then they either pay up OR query the amount, perhaps looking for a bill of costs, and end up paying up anyway.
Am I wrong?
Right Winger
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Perhaps the solicitor meant 10,000 Guineas? Or does the Law Society frown on that sort of thing these days? 