Employment Tribunal Lawyer Fees Court Claim - defence help needed

[leepy]

Hi all,

could anyone offer advice regards this situation.

 

i used an employment lawyer for a workplace dispute.

The result of this was me leaving work with a settlement.

 

I paid the lawyer all invoices received.

after settling with my previous employer and parting with the lawyer,

I was sent an email to tell me the my account with the lawyer was outstanding.

 

it appears the lawyer sent an invoice to the wrong email address.  

This turns out to be the first invoice ever generated that went unpaid.

 

The next two invoices I paid in full and responded to say it was paid.

I was never informed my account had a balance outstanding until everything was settled with my employer.

My decisions for settling were based upon the costs of my representation.  

This new fee changes the landscape of the situation.

 

The bill was for £1800.  

This was not what was verbally agreed (nothing was put in to writing/contract) nor did I know he was charging £400 per hour of his time.

 

I made an offer to pay £800 this wasn’t accepted (end of Jan 2019)

 

I heard nothing until Oct 2019 when I was sent a 7day demand for full payment of £2100 (interest added) or legal proceeding begin.

 A claims form was attached without a response pack (albeit referred to as a draft in their letter)

 

I emailed the narrative of the situation to the company again to which I ended the email I won’t respond directly to the company anymore and will have to accept whatever action they take.

 

I now have a claim form and response pack dates 30th jan.

 I have acknowledge the claim via the online portal and intend to defend.

 

I have written a defence based upon the company contributing to their own losses.

And using unorthodox pre-action protocols sending claim forms without response packs.

Im happy to post this on the forum.

 

I really need a sounding board on the matter,

I have some mental health issues (anxiety/depression),

whether it’s partly or because of this I never feel sure of myself an decision anymore.

Money is really tight, I will show this on the statement within response pack.

 

I genuinely believed we were squared up,

I even verbally asked on more than one occasion whether we were square.

 

The timescale of the missing invoice was for the sept period 2018.

I paid Oct (£480), Nov 2018 (£80)periods immediately.

On Dec 17th 2018 I was notified of the sept invoice being unpaid.

I settled with my employer Dec 5th 2018 (the lawyer recieved £360 from my employer directly, as contribution to my representation)

 

The Oct invoice was consistent with the price he quoted therefore I believed this was correct.  

The £1800 (sept) rogue invoice is was a complete surprise and one I never could have paid off nor been to prepared to risk for potentially nothing I return.  

I was exposed to a risk I was never aware of, if a was I would have had to back out immediately however a settlement was offered so I took it based on the fees I was aware of.  

 

Many what ifs now that I have no idea what the outcome or route would have been.  

This literally changes so much yet on a situation that is closed.

 

thanks in advance for any help, really appreciate it

 

 

 

 

 

[ericsbrother]

you could ask the SRA to get involved with regard to whether the lawyer has followed a CoP re proper invoicing and pricing of work but they may say no as you are being sued.

Do you have legal cover on your household insurance?

what was the email address the rogue invoice was sent to, anything to do with you or just a slip of the pen type error?

 

Invoice plus stat interest equals about £1950 so that needs looking into

there is also the defence of mitigation so if you were sent invoices for other charged work was there an indication on these that it wasnt a running total or the previosu invoice remained unpaid?

what was the agreed hourly rate if not £400, that will make a difference to the success of the claim in its entirety, not just to the amount claimed.

[leepy]

3 hours ago, ericsbrother said:

you could ask the SRA to get involved with regard to whether the lawyer has followed a CoP re proper invoicing and pricing of work but they may say no as you are being sued.

Do you have legal cover on your household insurance?

what was the email address the rogue invoice was sent to, anything to do with you or just a slip of the pen type error?

 

Invoice plus stat interest equals about £1950 so that needs looking into

there is also the defence of mitigation so if you were sent invoices for other charged work was there an indication on these that it wasnt a running total or the previosu invoice remained unpaid?

what was the agreed hourly rate if not £400, that will make a difference to the success of the claim in its entirety, not just to the amount claimed.

 

Thanks so much for your reply.

 

The email address used was a simple error of .com used instead of .co.uk
I know this because the email was then forwarded to me at a later date (when the case closed)

 

The quote was £400 to understand content and £400 to reply.

No hourly rate was agreed. Two people can verify this.

I did not know every time he asked me to call him that I was being charged.

 

No running total was provided, I was invoices at the then of their monthly period and I paid what was owed.

 

I’ll check for home insurance cover

 

Thanks again,

[ericsbrother]

so you agreed a fixed fee of £800 and this was witnessed by someone?

a flat fee is not the same as the lawyer saying it will take and hour to read and an hour to respond and my rate will be £400 for each of those hours so be sure that the witnesses are certain what they heard.

Ask some more solicitors in your area who do similar work what they charge per hour as where I live £280/hr for general litigation is normal and a specialist will charge £400/hr, which is also the normal rate for a London solicitor.

 

Whose error was the wrong email address being used?

if it was the solicitors then you need to look up mitigation and consider that as part of a defence

[leepy]

1 hour ago, ericsbrother said:

so you agreed a fixed fee of £800 and this was witnessed by someone?

a flat fee is not the same as the lawyer saying it will take and hour to read and an hour to respond and my rate will be £400 for each of those hours so be sure that the witnesses are certain what they heard.

Ask some more solicitors in your area who do similar work what they charge per hour as where I live £280/hr for general litigation is normal and a specialist will charge £400/hr, which is also the normal rate for a London solicitor.

 

Whose error was the wrong email address being used?

if it was the solicitors then you need to look up mitigation and consider that as part of a defence

The solicitor used the wrong email address.
 

Regards the price, to be fair to him it was a loose arrangement but £400 would get him up to speed and £400 would get them on the back foot was his expression.

 

When the first bill arrived at £480 it matched what I expected then the £360 from my employer as contribution to fees then another £80 invoice to cover what the shortfall in fees cover was.

 

The lost bill of £1800 was only for the first 15days of his representation which was literally getting him up to speed and sending a letter - what I’m trying to say is it’s not at all what he quoted anyway.

 

Why they didn’t inform me it went unpaid is just daft.  They’ve been happy to charge interest even when I wasn’t aware of the outstanding bill.

 

thanks for your help