Unsatisfactory conduct: Failure to provide final account
This is a summary of a decision by a Lawyers Standards Committee under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. This summary was published in LawTalk 770, 22 April 2011.
A lawyer was censured and ordered to pay costs after failing to provide a final account for more than 21 months after he ceased acting for the client.
The client had instructed the lawyer on the matter in April 2008, and the retainer ended in late December that year. By June 2010 the client had still not received a final bill of costs for this work and she laid a complaint.
The Conduct and Client Care Rules require a final account to be issued within a reasonable time of concluding a matter or the retainer otherwise being terminated (Rule 9.6). The account must also include sufficient information to identify the matter, the period to which it relates and the work undertaken.
The client told the Committee the lawyer had asked her to pay a certain amount upfront and then further amounts on account of costs. She said the lawyer was now asking her to agree to an amount without letting her see a draft account that the law firm had prepared, and without informing her of the costs incurred on a time and attendance basis.
The lawyer gave several reasons for the delay. He said he had intended to review the draft account and he had wanted to reach agreement with the client on the amount. He also said he expected the client to have difficulties paying the account in full and therefore he preferred to issue it after March 2010 to minimise his firm’s tax liability.
By the time of the Committee’s decision — 21 months after the end of the retainer — the client had still not received a final account. The Committee said this delay was unacceptable and the lawyer had breached Rule 9.6. It said that during the course of his retainer the lawyer should also have kept the client informed of the costs she was incurring. The client had not been informed of the total cost incurred on a time and attendance basis to enable her to properly assess a fair and reasonable fee for the services she had been provided with.
The Standards Committee found the lawyer guilty of unsatisfactory conduct and censured him. It also ordered him to pay $750 in costs to the New Zealand Law Society.