PAB-Barrister on personal Injury claim unprepared

[simeon1964]

As a self-litigant after almost seven years of ongoing PI claim for PSTD which was initially for 40k.

 

My barrister took over my case 2years ago and elevated my claim to 90k.

We had two days hearing. I prepared the bundle and delivered personally to his office a week before the date.

I asked for his skeleton argument, he replied, that is my own side, I will deal with it.

 

Hearing date the defendant barrister handed his skeleton argument to my barrister my barrister said he didn’t know he had to do one.

 

He borrowed my Ipad and held the court for 1.5 hrs pretext of negotiating.

Yes, there was negotiating but only took 5 minutes.

 

The judge rubbish his skeleton argument and he look like idiot when he was asked to comment on the defence case law.

 

I gave her my legal cost for 13k for her to give copy to defendant and the judge.

He took it, saying not now, ‘we have not won the case yet.’

 

Before the hearing defendant offered 12k settlement because they believed that the case was worth 5k. My barrister said it was too low.

 

After the first day hearing which went very bad for the defendant.,

I asked my barrister to push for more and reluctantly for my barrister the defendant offered 20k, my barrister said no he would get at least 40k for the claim

 

My Barrister won his case and was awarded 5K

. I quickly told him to slip my schedule of cost in for the judge to sort it out since he has not prepared one for himself instead he was cherry picking my legal cost.

By reading over to the judge.

 

Total pay with cost 7k while I have legal cost of almost 15k for this case.

We are still within the week of the decision,

can I re-present my cost or go after the barrister.

I have waited 7years for this case

.

[SuperVillain]

So you won?

 

And were awarded £5k for damages (General and Special?) ?

 

And how much for costs?

[Ganymede]

Simeon, this may be a silly question but why did you not originally instruct solicitors to act for you?

 

Can you also breakdown the £15k costs please?

 

It seems like the costs were summarily assessed on the day, therefore your options are very limited.

[simeon1964]

Could not afford legal fees or solicitor, lot of problems ,jobs, nearly lost the house ,marriage list just go on. Took case up my self got a default judgement, got warrant of execution of debt against the defendant, judgement set aside and back to the begining. CAn i go after the barrister or re- present my cost as the judgment is just days old. PLEASE HELP ANYONE

[Ganymede]

Please can you provide a breakdown of your £15k costs?

 

What do you want to go after the Barrister for? The legal costs or the fact that you "lost" £15k in compensation?

[SuperVillain]

You still haven't said what your award was.

 

Your original post looks like you were embroiled in a £90k PI claim and came out of it with an award of damages of £5k (after turning down an offer of £20k) and costs of £2k...

 

Did your barrister explain why he thought the claim was worth £90k (or even £40k)?

[simeon1964]

am finding difficult to load attachment any help

[Ganymede]

You can just type up a brief breakdown of the legal costs your were claiming.

[simeon1964]

Item No. Description of work done VAT Disburse- Profit ments Costs £ £ £

1. 12th October 2010 – Wainw & Csolicitors for Advice & Assistance 1,500.00 14th April 2010 – Claim issued 2. Issue fee 340.00 21st October 2011 – Particulars of claim served 25th November 2011 – served defendants copy of particulars of claims. Default judgement. Judgement set aside application 20/12/2010 Charging order application 250.00 3. Fee on allocation 220.00 01st August 2011- case allocated to multi-track 9th Feb 2012 – Case manage conference 1 & 2 of 25/05/2016 100.00 16th March 2012 – Claimant’s list of documents: amended particulars of claim/ loss /damages 300.00 12th June 2012 – Advice Ass.fee- Land Solicitors 300.00 26th April 2016- Advice & Assistance fee -Land solicitors 4. Paid listing fee 110.00 5. Paid hearing fee 1,090.00 16th March 2012 – Advice Assistance- Amended PC- Land Solicitors. 300.00 Engaged in court 0.0 hours Engaged in conference 0.0 hours £0..00 Travel and waiting 100 hours £0.00 6. Total solicitors fee for attending

7. Counsel’s fee for Opinion 1&2(Miss GH) 1,460.00 8. Fee of expert witness (Dr LK) 850.00 9. Expenses of witness of fact- Mr.Madj 84.00 03rd & 4th October 2016 - Attending second day of trial when judgement was given for the claimant in the sum of £0.00 plus £1600.00 interest plus costs 1,600.00 To summary: 0.00 8,504.00 0.00

 

 

 

 

Item No. Description of work done VAT Disburse- Profit ments Costs £ £ £

Engaged in Court Orkley 8.00 hours 03/10/16 £0.00 ?????? 0.00

Travel and waiting 2.5 hours £0.00 10. Total Orkley’s/ counsell fee for attending 11. Counsel’s fee for second day (M. chambers) 800.00 Chambers 12. 8th July 2011 – First instructions: Other timed attendances in person and by telephone – See Schedule1 0.00 13. Total fee for Schedule 0.00 14. Routine letters out and telephone calls – 29(17+12) total fee 145.00 Witness of Fact Timed attendances in person, by letter out and by telephone - See Schedule 2 15. Total fee for Schedule 2 – 5.2 hours 150.00 16. Routine letters out, e-mails and telephone calls – 8(4+2+2) total fee 40.00 17. Paid travelling on 03&04th October 2016 22.96 Medical Expert (Dr Jild/Gar) 18. 02 November 2011 – long letter out 0.33 hours fee 63.00 19. 11st January 2011 – long letter out 0.25 hours fee 0.00 20. Email, telephone call 0.2 hours fee 0.00 21. Routine letters out and telephone calls – 10(6+4) total fee 50.00 22. Dr Mark’s fee for report 950.00 Defendant and his solicitor 23. 8th July 2011 – timed letter sent 0.5 hours fee 100.00 24. 19th February 2012 – telephone call 0.25 hours fee 5.00 25. Routine letters out and telephone calls – 24(18+6) total fee 120.00 Communications with the court 26. Routine letters out and telephone calls – 9(8+1) total fee 45.00 To summary: 0.00 2,490.96 0.00

 

 

 

 

Item No. Description of work done VAT Disburse- Profit ments Costs £ £ £

Communication with counsel 27. Routine letters out, e-mails and telephone calls – 19(4+7+8) total free 300.00 Work done on documents 28. Timed attendance – see Schedule 3 Total fees for Schedule 8 – 0.75 hours at £0.00 44.5 hours at £0.00 12 hours at £0.00 ?????? 0.00 Work done on negotiations 20th Dec. 2010 – Defendant- Judgement set aside/warrant -2010 250.00 Engaged – Travel and waiting – £0.00 0.00 29. Total fee for meeting Other work done Preparing and checking CCTV for Police court orders 350.00 Engaged solicitor – 0 hour 0.00 Engaged: Costs draftsman/kiatu telephone conference25/05/16 – £100.00 100.00 30. Total fee on other work done-Police & medical reports 100.00 31. VAT on self Litigiant’s fees (20% of £0.00) ????? 0.00 32. VAT on Counsel’s fees (20% of £0.00) ????? 0.00 To summary: 0.00 1,100.00 0.00

Summary Page 2 0.00 8,504.00 0.00 Page 3 0.00 2,490.96 0.00 Page 4 0.00 1,100.00 0.00 Totals: 0.00 12,094.96 0.00 Grand Total 12,094.96

[simeon1964]

just copy and pasted it, just have to see a way to email to moderator. didnt expect to be in this format

[Ganymede]

Well a lot of those are disbursements and not entirely sure that they're all recoverable as some don't make sense.

 

As a LiP you are restricted to what you can claim at an hourly rate of £19 per hour and you can't bill like a solicitor for every call, routine letter etc.

 

I'm still at a loss as to why you didn't instruct a solicitor years ago.

[simeon1964]

i have charged 10pounds/ hour or rather left the cell open for the judge to decide. whats the remedy now. can i get to send the attachment any other way

[Ganymede]

I don't understand why you were only awarded £2k for costs.

 

Were the costs summarily assessed on the day?

 

Have you spoken to you Barrister and asked why?

[simeon1964]

my barrister was was reading out of my cost schedule when she was supposed to hand it over and has missed several and important payment. yes i have written to her and expecting reply

[simeon1964]

can i take action against this barrister as he never told me or gave inclination that the case was in that bracket of award award as the defence righly said

[Ganymede]

You may have grounds for a complaint or claim on his professional indemnity insurance, yeah.

 

A written complaint should be your first port of call.

[simeon1964]

Can l appeal the costs issue? or complain to bar council. My barrister had replied not accepting liability on not advising about the strength of the case, admitted the offers made but claimed l was not interested in the offer, which was not true. when he was all the time feeling reluctant to discuss settlement.

[Ganymede]

Focusing on the costs for the moment, what did you Barrister say? Why did he not ask for costs as per your schedule?

[simeon1964]

Your Costs

 

12.Under no circumstances am I liable for your costs. I had tried to settle the schedule of costs with you prior to the hearing but for some reason or another, you did not provide me with your schedule until the early hours of the hearing date. I had intended to request that the costs be assessed summarily so that the costs could be scheduled appropriately.

 

13.This is not an unusual approach and I recall explaining to you that you are essentially a litigant in person and you cannot claim your personal costs. I could not hand the schedule to the Judge as it had included costs for calls and other matters which you personally undertook and were not claimable. I did however indicate to the Judge that the schedule contained costs for approximately £12,000 of which the Judge raised his eyebrows and indicated that the costs should be no where near that.

 

14.He also said that bearing in mind the award, that the costs should be proportionate. The Judge also said that he was looking at half of that. So the Judge requested what the costs were for and I proceeded to narrate the claimable aspects of the schedule and I included all the court fees and the actual legal costs incurred through my services. The Judge then went through the costs and he also slashed some of the costs.

 

15.I also reminded the Judge of your care costs and costs for transportation for your therapy and the other side submitted that it was unfair to claim costs for your wife’s care so the Judge proceeded to reduce that also.

 

In all the Court made its decision and that is the risk of litigation. I also note that the Judge had reserved the rights of the parties to lodge an appeal and you are of course entitled to do so within 28 days.

 

 

I simply informed the court that I had no instructions for an appeal but that does not mean that you could not appeal the decision. Your right to appeal still remains and I would have explained all this to you if you had given me the opportunity after court.

[Ganymede]

So the costs that you were actually awarded, do they cover the Court fees you paid and the Barrister's fees?

[simeon1964]

Schedule showed telphone calls but no recording the as I left it open so that the judge can decide it. the barrister was not accurate. All cost I put down were relative to courts order from when case started in 2010

barrister omitted so many items., Yes court fees were awarded so was the hearing fees, but preparing bundle which were compiled by firm of solicitors for a fee were omitted, judgement set aside.etc, cost printing, conference. you need to see tabe of schedule

[Ganymede]

You don't get postage, telephone calls and cost of printing though.

 

You drafted the costs schedule, did you not include the solicitors fee for preparing the bundle?

 

In relation to the set aside, what did the Order at the time say? Were costs not assessed or was the order "costs in the case"?

[Guest]

simeon

just further to what supervillan asked.

what was the award (amount) of your damages.

and, did you mean that your barrister got 5k for his costs

[simeon1964]

telephone calls and transport were put at Zero : 00 for the judge discrection knowing that I was litigant in person.

Total of of cost was 12g .

The Barrister didnt prepare her cost, nor skeleton argument,

kept negotiating for me hoping he can get more.

 

 

The judgement was default for 41g in 2011

which was set aside by defendant on the basis that he didnt get notice of summon,

and when my Barrister took it over in 2014 he boosted it to 90k.

I wanted to belief that she knew what she was doing and have cases to back it up.

 

Yes damages was 5k.

before that the judge had ask the barrister about test case brought by defence.

He was quiet.

 

 

Order of 2011 re set aside was cost in the case.

Yes bundle cost was included in the schedule but the Barrister omitted it whn reading to the judge.

 

 

She had not even prepared her own cost coz our arrangement was on % Commission on the outcome.

She read out the cost scheduled I have prepared for her fees.

[SuperVillain]

Something seems to have gone awry here.

 

You were awarded £5,000.00 on a claim for £91,000.00? That's a vast difference (even £5,000 vs £41,000 is a huge difference).

 

And then against £12,000.00 claimed costs and disbursements you were awarded £2,000.00?

 

A total award of £7,000.00 ish?

 

It's hard to know what went wrong on both the costs and the damages without a lot more information. If we can get a better idea of what went wrong, then you will be better placed to establish if the barrister was negligent in any way...