Mr Burmingham is the subject of three posts already.  They dealt with three discrete aspects of his case, Maurice B Pty Ltd v Burmingham [2009] VSC 20: a titillating detail, advocates’ immunity, and the nature of the suit for fees.  But his case was really mostly about what happens when a no-win no-fee costs agreement [...]

[Read more →]

One might imagine the suit for fees to be the simplest legal claim there is.  But there seems to be great confusion about what the elements of the claim are,  what defences are available, and the relationship of the suit with a taxation, or the failure to exercise a right of taxation. If anyone has [...]

[Read more →]

Reproduced below is a blog post about ‘bill padding’ from the US site, Legal Blog Watch. That is where lawyers say work took them longer than it really did, and so charge commensurately more, or even make up the fact that they did work, and charge for it. Sometimes I read articles like this and [...]

[Read more →]

Ok, ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the solicitor did put out a costs agreement and fee disclosure document which contained no estimate other than $2,500, and did charge $111,000, which was reduced on an assessment — a NSW privatised version of taxation — and did not provide any re-estimates before putting out [...]

[Read more →]

In Winn v GHB [2007] VSC 360, a barrister was personally a party in some litigation. She was admitted in Victoria but at the relevant time was practising in Brisbane under a Queensland practising certificate. She taxed her solicitors’ fees, and acted for herself. She appealed successfully from the order of the Taxing Master. [...]

[Read more →]

22 July Update: what may be the first ever legal blog, and without doubt one of the best, Overlawyered has  a link to the arbitrator’s ruling, and links to some old posts dealing with the interlocutory stages of the case. And here’s Law.com’s article.
Houston plaintiff lawyer John O’Quinn has been ordered to repay clients $40 [...]

[Read more →]

A client sued his former solicitor in VCAT for a declaration that no fees were owing because of costs disclosure defaults by the solicitor. Member Butcher stayed the proceeding pending taxation by the Supreme Court’s Taxing Master on the basis that the sending of a cost disclosure statement at the same time as the work [...]

[Read more →]

Courtesy of Justinian, I bring you the story of the overcharging New Jersey lawyer who charged like this:
“With regard to the fee, he purportedly spent entire days, sometimes eight or nine hours per day, for several days in a row, apparently in ‘lockdown’ — researching, reviewing and negotiating issues that had little or no bearing [...]

[Read more →]

Update: now reported at (2007) 237 ALR 802 
This little problem gives rise to ridiculous complexities. In Cannon Street Pty Ltd v Karedis [2006] QCA 541, the Queensland Court of Appeal upheld Justice White’s decision to allow, as party party costs, work done for the successful party by Clayton Utz Sydney in relation to trial of [...]

[Read more →]

Update, 3 April 2009: It’s still going: Winn v GHB [2009] VSC 93.

Original post: In Winn v GHB [2006] VSC 476, Winn won, another victory for a pro se litigant against their former solicitors, though it seems this former teacher has recently joined the Queensland bar, which suggests she was at something of an advantage [...]

[Read more →]