Module 5: 3.00 – 4.30pm (1.5 Regulatory / Professional Development & Solicitor Wellbeing / General CPD Hours)

Friday 9th September 2022 = Seminar 5 in the Postal Booking Form

LEGAL FEES & BILLING

‘How To, And How Not To, Assess Legal Fees & Bill A Client’

Unless we know how to properly assess legal fees, how can we know what to bill? And how we bill a client is equally important to our continued relationship with them.

Perhaps more importantly, knowing how not to assess legal fees and bill a client is absolutely essential for us to ensure that we are both fairly remunerated for our hard work, and also avoid getting embroiled in any time-consuming and stressful complaint to the LSRA for allegedly charging excessive costs.

Agenda

This session will discuss the practical aspects of fees and billing that we encounter every day, including:

• considerations in contracting for legal services;
• general pitfalls in billing a client;
• in the event of a dispute, the process from both a Legal Practitioner/Client and Party/Party perspective;
• the factors governing the assessment of legal fees;
• how to assess Party/Party Costs – what is fair and reasonable?
• the powers and workings of the Legal Costs Adjudicators (LCAs).
• Legal Services Regulation Act, 2015 – the ‘New World’ of Legal Costs;
• introduction of the Office of Legal Costs Adjudicators (LCSAs);
• the ‘contract for services’ – S.150 terms and obligations;
• the Legal Costs Adjudication Process;
• the ‘factors’ governing an assessment of legal costs;
• practical example – Party/Party costs arising from High Court litigation.

Speaker

Shane Galligan FILCA MCIArb is a partner with Behan & Associates and a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Costs Accountants, a member of the 6-person governing Council and Chair of the Education Committee, a Member of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (as nominee of the Institute of Legal Costs Accountants), a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Co-Founder of Legal Costs ADR Ireland.