A barrister has won a partial victory against the Legal Aid Agency after challenging the £400 he was paid for grounds of appeal he 'spent the entire weekend' producing.
Tim Banks was representing Jetmir Topuzi, who was convicted of rape and sought permission to appeal. Banks advised on, and drafted grounds for, an appeal, which ultimately failed. The barrister submitted a fee of £1,250 plus VAT based on 13.5 hours of preparation time.
The Legal Aid Agency's determining officer originally allowed £350 plus VAT for this work - though upon reconsideration, he added a further £50, taking the total to £400 - after deciding that, as counsel had acted for the client in the lower court, he was already ‘very familiar with the facts and issues in this appeal’.
Senior Costs Judge Rowley, in the Senior Courts Costs Office, said: ‘Mr Banks told me that he had spent a lot of time researching the law when producing this document and spent the entire weekend producing it. He did not regard the case as being at all straightforward and he did not consider the sentencing note he had previously drafted had much relevance when preparing the advice and grounds of appeal.’
The costs judge agreed with the returning officer that the 10-page advice and grounds document ‘does not, on the face of it, support the amount of time spent and therefore the fee claimed’. He said he had the impression the time was spent seeking to improve the merits of the appeal, but finding ultimately there was only so much that could be said in Topuzi’s favour.
The judge said that could not support the full claim made by counsel, adding: 'Otherwise, there may be little to prevent an over-eager advocate in another case from pursuing all manner of potential avenues and producing a fee note to reflect those endeavours.' But the judge decided the determining officer’s fee was insufficient, deciding to award instead £650, which was broadly based on a day’s work.
No comments yet