Terence Flanagan
Ceist:468. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality to deal with a matter (details supplied) regarding legal fees; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46621/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 13 January 2016
Ceisteanna (468)
Freagraí scríofa
As the Deputy will know, Government Ministers do not set the legal professional fees paid by private clients to legal practitioners. However, as the Deputy will also be aware, the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015, which was signed into law on 30th December 2015, makes extensive provision in Part 10 for a new and enhanced legal costs regime that will bring greater transparency to how legal costs are charged by legal practitioners, along with a better balance between the interests of legal practitioners and those of their clients.
Legal practitioners, whether solicitors or barristers, will be obliged to provide more detailed information about legal costs from the outset of their dealings with clients. This will be in the form of a Notice, written in clear language, which must be provided when a legal practitioner takes instructions. Among other things, the Notice must disclose the costs that are involved, or, where this is not known, the basis upon which such costs are to be calculated. A cooling-off period is to be allowed for the consideration of costs by the client. When there are any significant developments in a case which give rise to further costs, the Act provides that a client must be duly updated and given the option of whether or not to proceed with the case in question. In addition, the Act sets out that it will not be permissible for legal practitioners to set fees as a specified percentage or proportion of damages payable to a client from contentious business and that it will no longer be permissible for barristers to charge junior counsel fees as a specified percentage or proportion of Senior Counsel fees.
An aggrieved client will also have the option of applying for the adjudication of disputed legal costs by the reformed and modernised Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators, which is currently known as the Taxing-Masters' Office. The Act sets out, for the first time in legislation, a series of Legal Costs Principles. These are contained in Schedule One and enumerate the various matters that shall be taken into account in the adjudication of disputed legal costs. The Act also provides for the establishment of a publicly accessible Register of Determinations which will disclose the outcomes and reasons for decisions made by the Legal Costs Adjudicators.
The Act, as part of a new independent public complaints regime to be run by the new Legal Services Regulatory Authority, will also introduce a system for processing complaints about excessive costs, which will be the subject firstly of informal resolution attempts, but will then escalate to formal resolution where alternative dispute resolution means do not succeed. This will be the first time that complaints about all legal practitioners will be dealt with by an independent statutory public authority.
In addition, the Act sets out a clear path to new Legal Partnerships business models involving barrister/barrister partnerships and barrister/solicitor partnerships, which will allow for such partnerships to open for business in competition with the more traditional lawyer structures. The new Legal Services Regulatory Authority will be tasked with carrying out public consultations and reporting to me as Minister with further legislative recommendations over its first four years in areas such as removing existing client money and direct access restrictions relating to barristers; examining entry and training requirements for the legal profession; unification of the two legal professions and the opening of the market to multi-disciplinary practices.
Overall, the Act seeks to achieve greater flexibility in the legal-services market, more competition and improved access to justice and will pave the way for the introduction of new business structures for legal practitioners. These combined measures will enable those availing of legal services, be they private consumers or enterprise, to identify costs more clearly, including in competition with other possible legal service providers. I might add also that both the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Consumers Association will have statutory nominees on the new 11 member Legal Services Regulatory Authority.
The legal costs provisions of the Act are expected to be commenced in the coming weeks, with the complaints-handling and business models provisions following in the coming months when the Authority is fully established.