The court upheld the refusal of the master to allow the claimant solicitors to submit an amended bill: ‘In his oral submissions, Mr Stockler . . frankly acknowledged that he had been in error in supposing that it was possible to charge an uplift for contentious work, and said that he tried to make the andpound;50,000 charge ‘look more appetising’ to Mr Bilkus by treating it as an uplift on all of the bills since April 2001. I do not find this explanation entirely easy to reconcile with what Mr Stockler said in his witness statement, but whatever Mr Stockler may or may not have subjectively intended, there can be no doubt that the bill would have been read by any reasonable recipient as intended to charge the uplift on the whole series of bills since April 2001. A mistake of that character in my judgment evinces a serious disregard of the Firm’s contract with its client and the relevant provisions of the Solicitors Act 1974. It is not the kind of mistake from which any firm of solicitors should expect to be relieved, let alone a firm based in the City of London and holding itself out as capable of dealing with complex High Court litigation.
I emphasise that this is not just a matter of discipline for its own sake. It is essential that the terms upon which a solicitor charges his client should be recorded in writing, and that a solicitor should not attempt to charge fees which are contrary to the terms of his retainer. It is also essential that, in all save exceptional circumstances, the client should be able to rely on the accuracy, both factual and legal, of bills which he receives from his solicitor. The particular mischief in the present case is that the Firm sought to charge an unjustified success fee of andpound;50,000, in circumstances where it was clear that the client had not agreed to this. Many clients might have been willing to pay a success fee of andpound;50,000 following a valuation which had been so successful, whether or not they were legally obliged to do so. However, Mr Bilkus was fully entitled to stand on his legal rights, and to insist that the Firm should be paid the fees which had been agreed, and no more. He may well have reflected that the Firm would have been unlikely to agree a reduction in its fees if the valuation exercise had gone against him. In any event, the important point, as it seems to me, is that the Firm deliberately sought to charge a substantial fee by way of uplift which had no possible justification. In those circumstances, the Master was in my judgment quite right to refuse the Firm permission to amend the invoice.’
Judges:
Henderson J
Citations:
[2009] EWHC 1957 (Ch), [2009] 4 Costs LR 652
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Bilkus v Stockler Brunton (A Firm) SCCO 11-Nov-2008
Master Gordon-Saker refused to permit the Solicitors to substitute their proposed amended bill, on the ground that he could not be satisfied that the error in describing the claim for andpound;50,000 as an uplift in relation to all the work that . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – Bilkus v Stockler Brunton (A Firm) CA 16-Feb-2010
Solicitors appealed against the rejection of their claim for an uplift in their fees amounting to andpound;50,000, based on the value element in the transaction in the 1994 Order. The court had to decide whether the matter came under the rules as a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Legal Professions, Costs
Updated: 21 October 2022; Ref: scu.368635