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Entries Tagged as 'setting aside costs agreements'

Client joy to abound in draft national profession legislation’s costs provisions

September 11th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Tweet For a long time after the new national profession legislation is introduced, if it is introduced in its present form, many lawyers are likely to find themselves restricted to charging scale, and not being able to recover their costs until there has been a taxation in the Costs Court, even when they have negotiated [...]

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Tags: Costs agreements · costs disclosure defaults · costs disputes · No win no fee · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements · Solicitor client bills of costs · Taxations · The suit for fees

Here’s why you should comply with the costs disclosure regime

February 6th, 2011 · No Comments

Tweet Quaresmini v Crouch & Lindon (a firm) [2010] FMCA 750 is a salutary tale. The lawyers did some work back in 2007. They sued the client for their unpaid fees and in 2009 got a default judgment having applied successfully for substituted service. Then in 2010, they bankrupted the client. 3 weeks out of [...]

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Tags: costs disclosure defaults · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements · Solicitor client bills of costs · The suit for fees

Is this the Legal Practice List’s biggest case?

October 9th, 2010 · No Comments

Tweet Virgtel Ltd v Gadens Lawyers [2010] VCAT 1584 might be VCAT’s Legal Practice List’s highest value case.  Not all that long ago in the scheme of things, I remember learning that VCAT had certain jurisdictions which were unlimited, and realising that — shock! — it might hear cases which the Magistrates’ Court could not [...]

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Tags: Legal Practice Act · Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements · VCAT · VCAT Act

Solicitor’s equitable charge to secure fees declared void

October 19th, 2009 · No Comments

Tweet The plaintiff in Brott v Shtrambrandt [2009] VSC 467 is not having much luck.  First of all, he cut what he thought was a plea bargain in a professional misconduct prosecution only to have VCAT’s Legal Practice List increase by 50% the penalty he and the Law Insitute had agreed jointly to contend was [...]

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Tags: Costs agreements · No win no fee · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · setting aside costs agreements

Weiss v Barker Gosling

September 17th, 2009 · No Comments

Tweet Weiss v Barker Gosling (1993) 16 Fam LR 728; [1993] FamCA 58 is a decision of Fogarty J about an application to set aside a costs agreement and have the client’s debt to his solicitor for representing him in the Family Court quantified by a taxation on the Family Court Scale.  It really comes [...]

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Tags: Costs agreements · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements

Procedure in applications to set aside costs agreements

August 9th, 2009 · No Comments

Tweet It costs about $290 to file an application to set aside a costs agreement under s. 3.4.32 of the Legal Profession Act, 2004 in VCAT.  It is not a step lightly to be taken.  Moreso than much of what goes on in VCAT, such applications are treated like litigation in a court.  Costs will [...]

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Tags: Costs agreements · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements · VCAT

Applications to set aside costs agreements

September 24th, 2008 · No Comments

Tweet This post has been sitting around as a draft waiting to be finished.  There is little chance of that for a long time.  So here is my incomplete annotation to s. 103 of the Legal Practice Act, 1996.  That is the provision which gives VCAT (formerly the Legal Profession Tribunal) jurisdiction to set aside [...]

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Tags: costs disclosure defaults · Legal Practice Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · setting aside costs agreements

Nicholson v B&S — the first important Victorian decision about setting aside costs agreements

September 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

Tweet Nicholson v B&S [2000] VLPT 28 was the first decision to deal in detail with the principles which govern the extremely wide discretions granted by s. 103 of the old Legal Practice Act, 1996. Registrar Howell cancelled a costs agreement, and ordered that one of the bills the client challenged — the only one [...]

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Tags: costs disclosure defaults · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements

Onus of proof in costs disputes between lawyers and clients

June 25th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Tweet In Nicholson v B&S [2000] VLPT 28, the Legal Profession Tribunal’s Registrar Howell, considered three questions about the burden of proof: Where there is a dispute about the amount of legal costs, must the client prove that the costs were too great, or must the lawyer prove that the costs were just right? Where [...]

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Tags: costs disputes · Professional fees and disbursements · setting aside costs agreements

On blogging

February 15th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Tweet The other day, I did a very geeky thing which was also a bit unonline. I had a coffee with fellow lawyer blogger, the mysterious Legal Eagle. One result of the coffee was that somehow I charmed her into writing a second case note of interest to readers of this blog — this time [...]

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Tags: Law Blogs · No win no fee · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · setting aside costs agreements