The Gazette 1975

Solicitors' Fees

Extract from National Prices Commission Monthly

Report, January 1975

294. On 24 July 1974, the Incorporated Law Society

of Ireland submitted an application to the Minister for

Justice for increases (ranging from 43% to 308%) in

the fees payable to solicitors under the Criminal

Justice (Legal Aid) Regulations 1965 as amended in

1970. The free legal aid scheme is administered by the

Minister for Justice under the Criminal Justice (Legal

Aid) Act 1962. Regulations made by the Minister set

out the procedures relating to the Scheme and

prescribe scales of fees and legal expenses with the

consent of the Minister for Finance. Under the Scheme

a person charged with an offence may apply for a

certificate of free legal aid. Each court has a panel of

solicitors who are willing to act in such cases. A

certificate will be granted if the court considers that

a person's means are insufficient to enable him to

obtain legal aid. One of these solicitors will then be

assigned to the case.

295. The application of 24 July 1974 from the

Incorporated Law Society of Ireland was based on tjie

following considerations:

(a) The main volume of work was handled by about

20 solicitors, and several of them are contem-

plating resignation from the Panel.

(b) There was an extreme dissatisfaction with the

fees at present payable. The Scheme of Criminal

Legal Aid was introduced on an experimental

basis, and pending experience it was agreed by

the profession that the fees payable would be

on a charity basis and therefore, lower than

those obtaining normally. Despite the significant

fall in the value of money in the meantime, no

adjustment had been made in this low scale of

fees since 1970. Given that the Scheme is now

of a permanent nature, the participating

practitioners consider that the fees payable

should be on a par with those payable in private

practice.

experience difficulty in operating the regulations

and, in particular, in having claims certified and

processed.

(d) For a solicitor engaging in a significant amount

of Criminal Legal Aid work, the present delay

in payment presented severe cash flow problems.

(e) Any attendance at a District Court in Dublin

represented a morning or afternoon out of

practice and would have to be paid for

accordingly.

(f) No allowance was made for the increasing

problem of being called out at very short notice

to advise a prisoner in Mountjoy, St. Patrick's,

the Curragh or in Portlaios. Failure on the part

9f the solicitor to attend such calls, no matter

how unreasonable, leads to criticism at Court

and adverse comment from the Bench.

296. The Department of Justice passed the

Society's application to Prices Division for considera-

tion on 6 December 1974. The Department of Justice

stated that most of the solicitors on the legal aid panel

in the Dublin area had resigned from the panel due

to the low level of fees. The Department of Justice

pointed out that the Consumer Price Index has risen

by about 55% since fees were last fixed in 1970, that

the fees fixed in 1970 were not excessive, and than an

increase in fees was justified, more especially as it

appeared that fees relating to certain cases in the

Court of Criminal Appeal, the High Court and the

Supreme Court should be increased by a higher than

average amount, due to the difficulties and volume of

work involved in these cases.

297. The Department of Justice did not make any

specific recommendation, because it had been hoped

that the actual increase in fees to be allowed, would

have been recommended by the National Prices Com-

mission acting in the role of arbitrator. This proposal

had been made to the solicitors concerned, on the

basis that the Commission's findings would be

accepted by the Ministers for Finance and Justice and

that the solicitors could present their case as they

thought fit. The solicitors declined to adopt this

procedure, but did not object to the Commission con-

sidering the case in the normal way.

298. The Department of Justice also pointed out

that some parts of a solicitor's business (such as

defending persons accused of crime) were not profit-

able work (such as conveyancing, probate, etc.)-

Accordingly, the principle applied by successive

Ministers for Justice, when dealing with scales of fees

for the more profitable work, had been to allow a

certain amount of charging "what the market would

bear" in the cases of fees for such work, provided the

solicitors concerned were also engaged on a proportion

of less profitable work. The introduction and expan-

sion of the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, and the likely

introduction at some date in the future of a scheme

of civil legal aid and advice (which would relate to a

certain amount of work in the unfitable category)

raised the question as to whether this type of approach

to solicitors' fees should continue.

299. Since the present application related to un-

remunerative work, the Department of Justice

requested that the Commission should indicate if

whatever increased fees that they might recommend,

on the basis of the present application, could be con-

sidered as adequate in themselves, without reference

to any more profitable work a solicitor might have.

The Department of Justice was not in a position to

indicate how many of the solicitors participating in

the legal aid scheme had practices that included a

substantial amount of the more profitable business, but

it was understood that a small number of those in the

Dublin area concentrated almost exclusively on free

legal aid work.

300. We considered this application from the