Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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496. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if his Department is examining methods of having stronger regulation, including by promoting transparency, in the area of the fees charged by barristers and solicitors; if he will address circumstances where legal costs are deducted from awards made by courts or tribunals to clients in such a manner as to dissipate a large portion of the original award and thereby almost entirely negate the value of the judicial remedy awarded to the clients. [17967/14]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011, which has completed Committee Stage in the Dáil and which I expect to commence Report Stage in June, gives legislative expression to the commitment in the Programme for Government to "establish independent regulation of the legal professions to improve access and competition, make legal costs more transparent and ensure adequate procedures for addressing consumer complaints".As well as having been a sectoral objective under the EU/IMF/ECB Troika Programme, the Bill is also an objective of the Action Plan for Jobs,the Medium Term Economic Strategy 2014-2020 and the National Reform Plan. The Bill is, therefore, a key component of the Government's strategy to bring greater transparency to legal costs and to reduce their burden on consumers and enterprise.

The Bill makes extensive provision, in Part 10, for a new and enhanced legal costs regime that will bring greater transparency to how legal costs are charged by legal practitioners, along with a better balance between the interests of legal practitioners and those of their clients. Legal practitioners, whether solicitors or barristers, will be obliged to provide more detailed information about legal costs from the outset of their dealings with clients. This will be in the form of a Notice written in clear language which must be provided when a legal practitioner takes instructions. Among other things, the Notice must, as set out in section 117 of the Bill, disclose the costs that are involved, or, where this is not reasonably practicable, the basis upon which such costs are to be calculated. A cooling-off period is to be allowed for the consideration of costs by the client. When there are any significant developments in a case which give rise to further costs, the Bill provides that a client must be duly updated and given the option of whether or not to proceed with the case in question. In addition, the Bill sets out that it will not be permissible for legal practitioners to set fees as a specified percentage or proportion of damages payable to a client from contentious business and that it will no longer be permissible for barristers to charge junior counsel fees as a specified percentage or proportion of Senior Counsel fees.

Section 116 of the Bill provides that "a legal practitioner shall not, without the prior written agreement of his or her client, deduct or appropriate any amount in respect of legal costs from the amount of any damages or moneys that become payable to the client in respect of legal services that the legal practitioner provided to the client". This mirrors a similar provision found in section 68 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1994 which relates to contentious matters. It is my understanding that the Law Society'sGuide to Good Professional Conduct for Solicitors(3rd Ed., 2013) also provides important guidance to solicitors in relation to monies received on behalf of a client.

An aggrieved client also has the option of applying for the taxation of disputed legal costs by the Office of the Taxing-Master. Under the Legal Services Regulation Bill the current functions of the Taxing-Master will be taken over by the new Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator . The Bill sets out, for the first time in legislation, a series of Legal Costs Principles. These are contained in Schedule One and enumerate the various matters that may be taken into account in the adjudication of disputed legal costs. The Bill also provides for the establishment of a public Register of Determinations which will disclose the outcomes and reasons for decisions made by the Legal Costs Adjudicator.

The various new legal cost transparency measures that I have set out will apply to barristers as well as to solicitors and will enable those availing of legal services to identify costs and their basis more clearly, including by way of comparison with other possible legal service providers and in relation to any potential award. I would expect that, along with those other cost-cutting measures being introduced by the Government, the new legal costs regime will help reduce such costs and their impact on clients including where awards may be made under the independent jurisdiction of the courts.