It is rare for at­tor­neys at law to be viewed in a flat­ter­ing man­ner. Of­ten times, at­tor­neys are viewed as ma­nip­u­la­tive, over­ly ex­pen­sive, dis­hon­est and ruth­less. In fact, I may even wa­ger a bet that in the court of pub­lic opin­ion at­tor­neys are viewed as the per­sons who pro­long le­gal mat­ters un­nec­es­sar­i­ly, with the sole pur­pose of en­sur­ing an ex­or­bi­tant fee. Now, if that was true or even re­al­is­tic, all at­tor­neys at law would be among the wealth­i­er mem­bers of so­ci­ety. I as­sure you there are a great many of us who are not.

Agree­ably, in every pro­fes­sion, trade or po­si­tion there are those whose ac­tions may bring dis­re­pute, but we can­not paint every­one with the same brush.

Last week, in con­sid­er­ing the cost of ac­cess to jus­tice, I in­ad­ver­tent­ly start­ed a de­bate re­gard­ing the cost of re­tain­ing an at­tor­ney at law, and the fail­ure of at­tor­neys to per­form work on a pro bono ba­sis. If we are to prop­er­ly de­bate le­gal fees, pro bono work and the mis­con­ceived greed of cer­tain pro­fes­sions, then we should do so us­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and not two or three pass­ing lines ref­er­enc­ing costs.

The prac­tice di­rec­tions have set out grades of hourly fees in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories.

Now, there are many who do not ap­pre­ci­ate the dif­fer­ence be­tween an in­struct­ing at­tor­ney at law and an ad­vo­cate at­tor­ney at law. In­struct­ing at­tor­neys at law man­age the re­la­tion­ship with clients and as­sist in case prepa­ra­tion while the ad­vo­cate at­tor­ney ar­gues the case be­fore the Court. There are some at­tor­neys at law who are sole prac­ti­tion­ers and per­form both func­tions.

The hourly rates above may seem ex­ces­sive to some per­sons, how­ev­er, not all at­tor­neys at law ac­tu­al­ly charge to the ex­tent at which they are al­lowed. There may many who un­der­es­ti­mate the time and ef­fort that is in­volved in draft­ing doc­u­ments and prepar­ing ar­gu­ments for tri­als. Let me con­sid­er a typ­i­cal sce­nario—in some mat­ters, the Court is now hear­ing in-per­son tri­als. A typ­i­cal day of tri­al can be­gin at around 9 am and con­clude around 3 pm if time is utilised wise­ly. Should we re­ly on the strict hourly rate for an in­struct­ing at­tor­ney at law and ad­vo­cate who are over ten years call but un­der 20, then the com­bined cost for those six hours alone would be $22,200.

This rate would not have con­sid­ered the hours which were ded­i­cat­ed to tri­al prepa­ra­tion, meet­ing with clients to en­sure that they un­der­stood what would tran­spire, prepar­ing close ar­gu­ments or any oth­er such work. There are not many at­tor­neys at law who ac­tu­al­ly bill clients the strict hourly rate.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, many per­sons con­sult with at­tor­neys at law and dis­cuss fees and nev­er seek a sec­ond or even third opin­ion to de­ter­mine whether they may be able to re­tain some­one with­in their fi­nan­cial means. Oth­ers, will at­tempt to re­tain high-pro­file at­tor­neys at law with many years of ex­pe­ri­ence and at­tempt to com­pare their fees to an­oth­er more ju­nior and less ex­pe­ri­enced at­tor­ney at law. Not all at­tor­neys bill in the same brack­et, so it would be un­rea­son­able to as­sume that all at­tor­neys at law will cost the same.

There are many at­tor­neys at law that will­ing­ly per­form work on a pro bono ba­sis for per­sons who are in need. Over the years, I have done this for sev­er­al per­sons who did not qual­i­fy for le­gal aid. In some in­stances, of­fer­ing free as­sis­tance can be re­ward­ing.

Many times, of­fer­ing as­sis­tance re­mind­ed me of the old say­ing, “no good deed goes un­pun­ished”. There have been sev­er­al oc­ca­sions where per­sons re­ceiv­ing as­sis­tance no longer felt the need to prop­er­ly progress their own mat­ters, or, un­nec­es­sar­i­ly pro­longed their mat­ters be­cause they did not have to con­sid­er pay­ing le­gal fees. In some cas­es, clients who have the ben­e­fit of pro bono as­sis­tance can be more dif­fi­cult than clients who are pay­ing for le­gal as­sis­tance. In this re­gard, it is un­der­stand­able that some at­tor­neys on­ly per­form pro bono work un­der spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances.

In cer­tain types of le­gal mat­ter many peo­ple re­quest rep­re­sen­ta­tion based on con­tin­gency arrange­ments. Spe­cial­ly, that at­tor­neys will be able to claim a per­cent­age of any set­tle­ment or a fixed amount be paid up­on suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion. These arrange­ments be­tween at­tor­neys and clients are gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed un­der the Code of Ethics in the Le­gal Pro­fes­sions Act.

While I ap­pre­ci­ate that not all per­sons can af­ford le­gal fees, it is not for the sole rea­son that at­tor­neys at law are un­nec­es­sar­i­ly ex­pen­sive. Should prop­er at­tempts be made, per­sons may be able to have con­sul­ta­tions, work with a pay­ment op­tion, get quotes from dif­fer­ent at­tor­neys and work with­in their bud­get.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is Head of Cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com.