There would have been quite a celebration in one Sydney household this week. A former Vietnamese migrant with poor English speaking skills finally won an action against one of this city's largest law firms. In a scathing finding Supreme Court justice Monica Schmidt ordered them to pay most of its clients legal bills from action he took to try and obtain an itemised account of what they charged him for their services.
This firm specialises in personal injury claims and appeared for this client in an action in a District Court case. At its conclusion, they handed him a lump sum bill for $ 304,688 - which he questioned. After a year of fruitless negotiations he asked for an itemised breakdown so that he could refer the bill to a court assessor so that he could have its merit determined, and this former legal provider refused the request on the grounds that a twelve month time limit had expired - and claimed that it had " lost his files ".
This Vietnamese speaker was a very determined man and in March 2015 he took action in the Supreme court, and obtained a ruling from that same Justice that his former lawyer handover an itemised account, which was not forthcoming. Perhaps a law firm is both foolish and arrogant to ignore the order of a Supreme Court justice because when this matter appeared before her again she decided to implement a change and issued a new ruling under an " indemnity basis " which is higher than the usual costs awarded in litigation. The ruling would cover his entire legal bill.
She also blasted that law firm for " entirely cynical " behaviour . She noted that they were aware that their client had limited English skills and should have assented to his request to have the bill assessed. She ruled that their failure to comply with her earlier order was based on " hopeless technical points " which had been rejected in the former application. As a result, their client incurred additional costs in these proceedings.
It is an exceptionally brave person who decides to go head to head with a major law firm over any sort of injustice. The nuances of the law are many and varied and all the guns are pointing outward from that legal fortress. It is rare to find a legal firm of substance prepared to take on such a litigant as a client unless he or she can clearly demonstrate that they have the ability to settle whatever bill arises from a loss.
In todays world, some legal firms advertise a " No win - No bill " policy but that can be a trap for those ignorant of the law. Usually, such firms are very selective about the merits of cases they accept. They only undertake those with a clear path to victory and because of this " No Bill " risk factor, their charge for winning is usually higher that the normal rate scale. Some even negotiate a percentage of the amount awarded as their fee determination.
Clients court financial disaster if the case ends in a loss - and the other party lodges a request for their costs to be paid by the losing litigant. Whilst there will be no bill from the firm that represented them, they are entirely responsible for the costs of their adversaries lawyer - and that can run to thousands of dollars.
Many people will be heartened by this " David and Goliath " battle in which the " little guy " wins, but mostly the courts are a battleground in which the odds are stacked against us. We enter those hallowed doors - at our peril !
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