In Michaels v Daley [2010] VCAT 1205, Senior Member Howell advised that: ’12    It usually is an implied term of the engagement of a legal practitioner, at hourly rates, that the work will be performed efficiently. It is an implied term of the kind that “goes without saying”, to adopt the phrase used by the [...]

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A barrister rang me the other day in relation to what he probably thought was a simple question: if a lawyer settles a dispute about legal costs and then sues for specific performance, is it a ‘proceeding to recover legal costs’?  No, I said, but I could not find, on my blog, or anywhere else [...]

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In the law of legal costs, there has long been a distinction between a lump sum bill, of the kind generally given in the first instance by solicitors to clients with whom they have an ongoing working relationship, and an itemized bill which is usually given if a client wants a bit more detail in [...]

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The Legal Practice Act, 1996 still governs costs agreements in matters where instructions were first given prior to 12 December 2005 and bills rendered pursuant to them, even after that date, which was the commencement date for the Legal Profession Act, 2004: see cl.  3.1(1) of the second schedule to the Legal Profession Act, 2004.  [...]

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A well-known Melbourne solicitor sued his clients for $165,000 in fees for helping them buy a car dealership.  Six years after a dinner with the clients in St Kilda, he sued his dinner companions, claiming to have entered at the dinner into an oral agreement that he would receive 1% of the purchase price of [...]

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Update, 8 March 2010: See also Pancarci v CVK & Co [1998] VLPT 10, a decision of Registrar Howell.  Judge Jane Campton appeared, and referred Mr Howell to a decision of Justice O’Bryan in Carroll v Young (delivered 16 January 1990 in Supreme Court proceedings numbered OR 108/89), which came to the same conclusion in [...]

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The Supreme Court of NSW recently delivered a giant decision about a solicitor’s costs agreement and a fight over the right to possession of the solicitor’s file.  Acting Justice Debelle’s reasons in PM Sulcs & Associates Pty Ltd v Oliveri [2009] NSWSC 456 exceed 33,333 words.  Ultimately, his Honour found there was no costs agreements, with [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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