Firms can charge £110 just for the act of sending a one-word
email
Top City law firms are billing
up to £1,100 an hour – the highest rates ever recorded – producing
“astronomical” and “unjustifiable” fees that are restricting access to justice,
it has been claimed.
Partners at “Magic Circle”
firms are now charging an average of £850 to £1,100 an hour – almost double the
£498 to £598 in real terms they were billing in 2003, according to the author
of a report for the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank.
Secrecy around pricing and a
lack of competition is keeping the fees artificially high, the study
found.
The report’s author, Jim
Diamond, said a knock-on effect is seeing lawyers throughout the system demand
much higher hourly rates, distorting the market to the point that small
businesses were being priced out of justice.
Mr Diamond, a costs lawyer who
also publishes an annual survey of firms’ hourly rates, told The
Independent that:
* Last year he was contacted
by two clients about partners at two different Magic Circle firms charging
£1,100 an hour
* Many firms bill for “unit
time”. So for typing “yes” or “no” and hitting “send” on an email, the partner
might count it as a six-minute time unit and bill £110 – for 30 seconds’
work
* The inflationary effect was
such that, in one “bog-standard commercial” case, “a law firm above an Essex
chip shop is charging £437 an hour”
* A partner at a top-50 law
firm in central London last year charged his client £2,800 for meeting him for
a drink in a wine bar. He billed it as a seven-hour working day at £400 an hour
* A top-15 law firm charged a
business £44 for sandwiches at a lunch attended by only two representatives of
the client company – then added its normal hourly rate to the £22 per head
sandwich fee.
Mr Diamond said the fees being
charged by the top firms were “astronomical and almost always unjustifiable”.
Magic Circle firms declined to
comment on the report’s claims last night. Mr Diamond said: “There is
secrecy bordering on paranoia about their fees. The lack of transparency allows
them virtual control over their prices. It’s smoke and mirrors: ‘You don’t ask
us. We charge you, we get away with it.’
“It creates inflation
throughout the system. The second- and third-tier firms shoot their fees up to
the point that small businesses can’t afford the legal fees. It is denying
people access to justice.”
His criticism of the billable hours
system echoed that of the Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Jackson, who in
2013 played a key role in reforms to introduce costs management in civil
litigation.
Delivering a public lecture
last week, Lord Justice Jackson warned that firms could be tempted to create
unnecessary work and prolong litigation in order to boost their profits.
He said: “Remuneration on a
time basis rewards inefficiency. Unrestrained costs-shifting drives parties to
leave no stone unturned: the more costs mount up, the more determined each
party becomes to ensure that the other party pays them. The result is
inevitable – a civil justice system which is exorbitantly expensive.”
He added: “If costs prevent
access to justice, this undermines the rule of law. Complexity is inherent in
every modern legal system, [but] there are other jurisdictions with complex
laws and procedural rules where litigation costs are significantly lower than
here.”
In his report, The Price of
Law, Mr Diamond points out that in the US, partners in the top 14 firms
averaged an hourly rate of $980 (£671) – while the leading UK firms were
billing roughly the same numbers, but in sterling. The billable hours system,
he added, was “outdated and unsustainable”. “The Lord Chancellor should give
full consideration to Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals to move to a fixed fee
basis, to ensure the price of law is not punitive.”
Mr Diamond added: “The top
commercial law firms in the City of London are regarded as some of the best
legal practices in the world, and are some of the most expensive providers of
legal services. However, they are also some of the least transparent,
particularly in terms of pricing.”
All five Magic Circle firms –
Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters and Slaughter &
May – refused to comment.
A source who works at one
Magic Circle firm said, however: “We are competing for talent in a global
market. US firms pay people a hell of a lot more than we do.
“And the top firms concentrate
on the larger, cross-border complex multi-jurisdictional stuff. That takes a
lot of work and costs money.
“To say there
is no access to justice for smaller firms who don’t want to pay our fees is
like saying Michelin-starred restaurants are too expensive for people on the
dole. Just as there is a whole range of restaurants to fit different budgets,
small businesses can get perfectly good legal advice from mid-tier firms.”
The source added: “There is a lot of pressure from
clients to keep costs down. Billable hours are still probably the bulk of it,
but I don’t think there is a firm that doesn’t use alternative fare
arrangements.”
Catherine Dixon, chief executive of the Law Society,
the professional body for solicitors, said: “We welcome the [report’s]
recognition that the City of London has some of the best legal firms in the
world. Many offer competitive prices. They are highly successful businesses
operating in a competitive sector. We should be celebrating their phenomenal success.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This
Government remains supportive of the principle of extending fixed recoverable
costs.”
Explainer: rise in fees
How average hourly rates for partners at leading
commercial-law firms have increased in real terms (despite a dip during the
recession):
2003: £498 to
£598
2005: £546 to
£674
2007: £766
to £858
2008: £710 to
£888
2009: £521
2010: £729 to
£813
2011: £644
to £752
2013: £713
to £866
2015: £775
to £850
2016: £850
to £1,100
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