Overcharging scandal is disgusting, says legal chief
The Master of the High Court, Edmund Honohan, a senior counsel, said the fact it took so long for the story to emerge confirms the perception that wronged clients feel they have nowhere to turn for redress.
Mr Honohan, who is not a judge but sits on the bench to hear discovery and other motions, said the profession should have no objection to being regulated by an outside body, to open its books and stand over them.
His comments, to be delivered also to a Conference of Solicitors in Cork tomorrow, are likely to re-ignite the debate over the profession’s self-regulation.
The Master has also focused on what he believes is the lack of transparency in relation to fees, believing clients have no idea if they are charged for mistakes made by solicitors.
A large chunk of the fee is not itemised beyond a general description of the work done.
He will speak after revelations that solicitors, who were paid full fees by the Residential Institutions Redress Board, double-charged vulnerable abuse victims, taking part of their award.
More than 80 complaints of overcharging have been made to the Law Society, which issued a statement last night denying claims by Residential Institutions Redress Board that action should or could have been taken earlier.
The society has promised to investigate and take action if there has been misconduct by solicitors.
Abuse survivors’s group, Right of Place, is to convene an extraordinary general meeting and will decide whether to press for a criminal investigation into the allegations.
Mr Holohan told the Irish Examiner: “Not a single one of my colleagues, whether solicitors, barristers or judges had expressed anything other than dismay and disgust at learning of the overcharging and of how widespread the practice appears to have been.
“The sad thing is that the story took so long to emerge. That in itself confirms the perception that the wronged client feels he has nowhere to turn for redress. The legal profession as a whole now has the appetite for change.”
In his speech to the conference, Mr Honohan will criticise the profession’s focus on money.
“The law belongs to the people... today’s younger lawyers appear to have lost the capacity for outrage and that much-admired willingness to persevere with a case regardless of cost. The profession needs to ask why it is focused on costs.”
Mr Honohan believes the issue of how or why costs have been incurred could be dealt with at each stage of the proceedings.
“There seems no reason why the client’s liability for costs shouldn’t be considered at each stage and ‘wasted costs’ orders against the solicitor made where appropriate,” he said. The wasted costs may be due to mistakes made by a solicitor.
“The practice at present is to preserve costs to the trial judge and that inevitably means the client will never be informed if the court has awarded some costs against him along the way because his solicitor had incurred wasteful expenses.”
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