Conduct unbecoming. Gross overcharging
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 739.
A lawyer who overcharged a client by more than three times the amount of a reasonable fee was found guilty by a Standards Committee of conduct unbecoming a lawyer. He was fined $2,000 and ordered to pay costs.
The Standards Committee had investigated the case on its own motion after a costs revision under Part 8 of the Law Practitioners Act 1982.
The costs reviser had reduced one invoice by more than 50% and a second by more than 75%. The Standards Committee noted that a lawyer’s responsibility to charge reasonable and appropriate fees was an important one, and that such gross overcharging was a serious breach of that responsibility.
The costs reviser had also completely disallowed a third invoice of more than $11,000, issued for time spent collecting the first two invoices from the client. The Standards Committee said that charging professional fees for time spent on debt-collecting was totally inappropriate. It had nothing to do with providing legal services to the client.
The costs reviser had also raised the issue of whether the lawyer had charged for work not done. However, the Standards Committee accepted the lawyer’s explanation that he had in fact carried out the work in question and had simply deleted the relevant document from his computer after another lawyer had taken over the case.
Because the case involved conduct before 1 August 2008 (the commencement date of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006), the Standards Committee was limited to the penalties it could impose under the Law Practitioners Act 1982. The Committee decided to impose the maximum fine under the earlier act of $2,000 (by contrast, the maximum fine under the 2006 act is $15,000). It also ordered the lawyer to pay the New Zealand Law Society $750 for costs and expenses.
The Standards Committee decided the public interest would be adequately protected if only the facts of the case and not the lawyer’s name were published, and the Committee ordered accordingly.