obiter | ByLawyers News and Updates

Costs disclosure – Increase of legal rates during a matter

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Increase of legal rates during a matter

All By Lawyers Costs Agreements and Client Service Agreements have been updated to include a clause notifying a client that legal rates may increase during the course of a matter requiring a revision of the costs estimate provided. This clause provides for 30 days written notice of any proposed changes to legal rates. While such a clause is not required by Legal Profession legislation concerning costs disclosure requirements, providing such notice on initial costs disclosure is considered best practice.

All of our Guides contain Costs Agreements (Client Service Agreements for QLD Guides) within the folder ‘A. Getting the mater underway’. All of our agreements are compliant with the relevant Legal Profession legislation and are reviewed and updated regularly to ensure compliance.

Matter type changes

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There has been a technical change to the structure of our Defamation & Protecting Reputation and Neighbourhood Disputes publications. They have been changed from federal matter types to state-based matter types.

Subscribers may notice that the title of the Defamation publication now includes a state name. This is nominative only. The content of the Defamation publication is unchanged and remains the same across all states.

For state-based guides and precedents to be visible from existing matters, LEAP Desktop users will need to change their matter type from Other areas of law > Miscellaneous > Disputes to Other areas of law > Disputes.

Courts and tribunals – 1 July fee increases and legislation updates

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1 July always sees legislative changes, including increases to court fees. Happy New (financial) Year!

The following are some of the important changes commencing 1 July 2018. By Lawyers publications in each state have been updated as appropriate.

LITIGATION, CRIMINAL LAW, FAMILY LAW & DECEASED ESTATES

All States

Fee increases apply in all courts and tribunals.

Injury claims – where damages for permanent impairment and/or non-economic loss are subject to statutory caps (e.g. motor accidents and workers compensation legislation) these maximum amounts have been updated.

Defamation – the maximum amount of damages for non-economic loss available under the Uniform Defamation Law is now $398,500.

VIC Supreme Court

All documents for Supreme Court Common Law, Commercial Court and Costs Court matters must now be electronically filed using the RedCrest electronic filing platform. Court users will need to register. See the Supreme Court page ‘Electronic filing and case management’ and the commentary in the By Lawyers Victorian Supreme Court Guide

 

Defamation and Protecting Reputation

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Defamation and Protecting Reputation

OCTOBER
  • Costs Agreements
    • Disputes section improved, fields for client and firm details added, trust account details added, solicitor’s lien added, execution clauses for individuals and corporations added and general formatting and grammatical improvements.
    • VIC/NSW – included reference to time limit for bringing costs assessment included total estimate of legal costs section with provision for variables and included authority to receive money into trust.
    • WA – added clause on scale fees.
JUNE
  • Updated figure for damages for non-economic loss under section 35(3) of the Defamation Act 2005 updated for 2016. The figure is uniform across all jurisdictions.
MAY
  • Case Law – Succession – added new case under ‘Child Omitted from will’ heading – Brimelow v Alampi [2016] VSC 135.
  • Business structures – Comparative table – Included land tax for TAS WA ACT and NT.
APRIL
  • File Cover Sheets for all publications have been completely re-formatted for a better look.
MARCH

 

New Publication – Defamation

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As of today, our library of publications now includes a Defamation & Protecting Reputation publication.

It is a complete guide to acting in defamation and related areas of the law including privacy, breach of confidence, injunctive relief, Injurious falsehood, and misleading and deceptive conduct.

You can find out more about what documents, forms and commentaries the guide includes by looking through the Table of Contents.

You can also check out ‘Public shame – Justice and defamation in the digital age‘, an interesting article we posted on online shaming and the defamation law in Australia.

As always, if you have any questions, please email us at support@bylawyers.com.au.

 

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