Legal Costs

jakes14

I have a circuit court divorce case that is listed each month for an update and each month we know its not going ahead so its adjourned without hearing evidence.

Any idea on how much barristers and solicitors charge for adjourning a case? I would like an idea of what its going to cost when its finally over.

Do they charge by hour/apprarance/ amount of work ...which is minimal as we are awaiting documentation so its adjourned each time

L1011

What do you have in the fees details that your solicitor provided?

It is generally by the hour.

Caranica

You should have been given a breakdown of fees when you took on the solicitor, including barrister charges. If it's anything like mine, the answer is a LOT!

jakes14

Thanks. Its been ongoing for several months and have paid everything excluding the last number of months as it was all adjournments so nothing was being done on the case. I did get a cost breakdown im sure but its been so long i can't remember if i did or what was in it.

Looks like it'll be another hefty sum when its finally ready to close off.

So unfair when you see TDs like Paul Murphy getting legal aid and the crazy costs of family law matters we have to pay. Either pay it or stay married. No win situation!

I'd like to know as I, too, am having dates cancelled again and again with no penalties imposed on either the other side or on the Irish State (which, lest we forget, receives a massive 23% tax from all our legal fees).

The delays in family law cases are an absolute outrage and must be in breach of some human rights. Consistently. I got a Section 150 at the start listing the barrister's costs. You should have also so search your email. The difficulty I have is, despite that Section 150, that it's very difficult to determine how much time they are actually putting in. "Ah, I'll just bill him for another hour or so and that's my Land Rover payment for the month covered."

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120905403#Comment_120905403

You can avoid a lot of the fees by coming to an agreement before it gets to the court. You can't really expect the State to fund long drawn out battles and bickering if it ends up going like that.

Having no, or bad, representation might be a bad investment though if the other side takes a different approach

Rather, the State has a vested financial interest in cases becoming "long, drawn-out battles" given that it imposes a massive "misery tax" of 23% on all legal fees. The more legal costs there are, the more the Irish State makes from making the family law system as nasty and vicious as possible.

If the Irish State really wanted to reduce the viciousness, it would appoint far, far, far more family law judges, and for the first time in the history of this State ensure the judges are all specialist family law experts, and, of course, finally impose serious, emforced time limits on all stages of family law cases. That would end most of the long-drawn-out cases in a heartbeat. But the Irish State would take a major financial hit in losing all those 23% taxes.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120916586#Comment_120916586

I understand the cynicism, but the argument doesn't really stack up. If people spent less money on lawyers' fees, they would spend more money on something else — something which most likely would also attract the standard rate of VAT. The only loss to the exchequer would be the amount of the savings that people never spent at all or spent on zero-rated items like groceries, which I think wouldn't be huge.