Massive 80% reduction in commercial lawyer’s fees

We recently received three Certificates of Determination from the NSW Supreme Court that signified a pivotal moment in our client's journey and a remarkable victory against the odds.

The story begins with this: our client had hired a law firm for a professional negligence case in the NSW Supreme Court and a Federal Court case against a bank, expecting fair representation. However, the former lawyer had launched not one, but two cases, seeking to recover their costs. In response, we filed a third case against the solicitor to initiate a review of fees already paid.

The Costs Assessor ruled that the fees were "unjustifiably high". For the professional negligence case, which was stopped after a few months, a $47,000 bill was marked down to $27,000, equalling a 42% reduction.

In regards to the Federal Court case, there were two separate costs assessments:

• In the first, a $199,000 bill was cut down to $142,000—a 29% reduction.
• In the second, a $106,000 bill was slashed to $22,000—a massive 80% reduction.

This translates to a $161,000 reduction to the lawyer’s total fees of $352,000.

However, these results weren't the end of it. The solicitor was ordered to cover the filing fees of the costs assessments in the Supreme Court, the Costs Assessor's fee of around $17,000, and reimburse our client a portion of the fees paid to us to represent them.