Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 March 2017
133. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority; if it will have a role in adjudicating on claims that currently involve the taxing master; if so, if this role will be retrospective; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13444/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Legal Services Regulation Act 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 along with a better balance between the interests of legal practitioners and those of their clients. As part of this structural reform, under section 139(1) of the Act, the existing Office of the Taxing-Master, which is an Office of the High Court, is to become the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators. The new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators will, therefore, continue to operate independently in its determination of disputed legal costs and the Legal Services Regulatory Authority will not be performing those functions currently exercised by the Taxing-Master retrospectively or otherwise. However, this would not preclude the Regulatory Authority from recommending the future referral of a legal costs matter to the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators as part, for example, of the resolution of a complaint.
The Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators will be supported by a modernised transparency and governance framework with prescribed business, strategic and annual reporting cycles. It will be under the management of the Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator under whose general direction the other Legal Costs Adjudicators in the Office will operate. Under the terms of section 140 of the 2015 Act the new Office will establish and maintain a publicly accessible Register of Determinations which will also state the reasons for the legal costs determinations concerned. Under section 142 the Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator may also prepare and publish, for the guidance of Legal Costs Adjudicators, legal practitioners and the public, guidelines on the manner in which the functions of the Legal Costs Adjudicators are to be performed. For the first time in legislation, Schedule 1 of the 2015 Act sets out the Principles Relating to Legal Costs that are to be applied under section 155 in the adjudication of legal costs by a Legal Costs Adjudicator while also having regard to such matters as whether the work claimed was actually and appropriately done, was reasonably charged and the costs concerned reasonably incurred. It should also be noted that a number of the new provisions contained in Part 10 of the 2015 Act will also apply to legal costs determinations carried out by County Registrars.
While the Legal Costs Regulatory Authority will not assume any of the current functions of the Taxing-Master it will, under the new complaints regime contained in Part 6 of the 2015 Act, continue to provide an opportunity for the informal resolution of more minor legal costs disputes between legal practitioners and their clients at what might best be described as the consumer level. This facility is intended to allow more minor legal costs matters to be resolved informally at the invitation of the Regulatory Authority without incurring the substantial costs and time that would arise under a full and formal referral to the Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators. However, it should be noted that this informal process is not intended to deal with more serious legal costs disputes or to deal with the charging of "grossly excessive" fees the charging of which could, under section 50 of the 2015 Act, be considered to amount to professional misconduct by a solicitor or a barrister.
The current working focus remains very much on the phased commencement of the respective sections or Parts of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 and the effective roll-out of the key functions concerned over the coming period. Some of these functions such as the holding of public consultations on Legal Partnerships, Multi-Disciplinary Practices and certain aspects of the work of barristers under sections 118 to 120 of the Act have already commenced. The Chairperson and members of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority, its Interim Chief Executive and my Department are working closely to ensure that we can successfully coordinate the identification of the necessary steps and commencements by the Department, and the delivery, by the Authority as the new independent statutory regulator, of the various remaining provisions concerned. The changeover to the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator will, therefore, come into effect with the commencement of the relevant provisions of Part 10 of the 2015 Act. This is something for which detailed preparation is already being made by a specifically tasked joint working group chaired by my Department in conjunction with the Courts Service that is working to map out and oversee the various practical steps that have to be taken to get the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators up and running. This work is also intended to ensure that the relevant new legal costs adjudication processes, documentation, rules of court and IT systems can be put in place in a legally robust manner. Certain transitional arrangements that will apply to the coming on stream of the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicators and the modalities of processing any matters which may already have been referred for a taxation of legal costs are set out in sections 164 and 165 of the 2015 Act. In broad terms, this will be done on the basis that such referrals will be dealt with in accordance with the applicable law as it stood when they were initially made.
