EXPENSIVE LAW

Evening Star, Issue 15482, 2 May 1914, Page 3

EXPENSIVE LAW

Lawyers’ fees go on increasing. According to an authority the fees demanded by barristers in England have doubled and trebled during the last 40 years, and there is significance in the fact that the recentlyproved wills of three barristers disclosed fortunes amounting to between £87,000 and £500,000. Half a dozen of the leading English barristers, according to the same authority, refuse even to look at a brief under a preliminary fee of l,Coogs. “Again and again busy K.C.s have put up their figures to what they imagined was a prohibitive figure, in order to limit their work—and got the fee after all.” In society cases especially large fees are paid, a retainer of sCogs and a “ refresher ” of lOOgs a day being merely a usual fee for a prominent leader. In the seventies a Q.C. would take a case for lOgs a day, the junior receiving £6 6s Bd, and in an important case a leading Q.C,. would accept lOOgs as a retainer and a “ refresher ” of 25gs a day. Contrast this with the 4,000gs paid recently for an opinion, and the sCogs paid by a Chicago millionaire to a K.C. for representing his sons in a case which lasted one day. In the recent Telephone v. Post Office arbitration the fees paid leading counsel were l,ooogs and lOOgs a day. In the Scott will case last year Sir Edward Carson received a retainer of l,ooogs and lOOgs a day, and retainers of 500gs and “refreshers” of lOOgs were paid to four K.C.s in the conduct of the same case. Altogether the fees totalled £IO,OOO. For his services at the Titanic inquiry the Attorney-General received £2,458 and the Solicitor-General £2,425. It is said that perhaps the record fee ever offered to a K.C. as a retainer was the 10,0 COgs marked on a brief sent to Mr Asquith in December, 1905, but we are inclined to doubt this figure. The brief was returned, Mr Asquith taking office shortly afterwards, and was subsequently accepted by Mr Raymond Asquith at a lower figure. • It is calculated that the earnings of some K.C.s work out at the rate of £SO an hour, or close upon £1 a minute.