Judge slams Shine Lawyers over excessive fees

A Supreme Court justice was so concerned about the fees Shine Lawyers planned to charge a vulnerable client that he drew them to the attention of Queensland’s Legal Services Commissioner.

Justice Peter Applegarth.

A Supreme Court justice was so concerned about the fees Shine Lawyers planned to charge a vulnerable client that he drew them to the attention of Queensland’s Legal Services Commissioner.

“My impression is that the estimated costs differential is well beyond what might be expected for a case of this kind,” Justice Peter Applegarth said in a judgment on August 31 last year in the Supreme Court of Queensland. He also criticised other aspects of Shine’s handling of the case.

“I consider … that requesting the Legal Services Commissioner to consider those matters is an appropriate use of the court’s inherent jurisdiction over legal practitioners which may be exercised in any appropriate case so as to regulate the charges made by them and to prevent demands for excessive legal costs,” Justice Applegarth said.

“Therefore, I will direct that a copy of these reasons be provided to the commissioner.”

Shine’s client, then 69, had been awarded a $350,000-plus payout in January 2021 relating to an accident in October 2015, when she had been hit by a car while on a pedestrian crossing.

Justice Applegarth’s role was to determine whether she had the legal and/or financial capacity to manage the sum or whether she needed someone to manage it on her behalf. He found her capacity was not impaired.

He said, given that liability had been admitted at a very early stage – in February 2016 – the case seemed to be of “some, but not great” complexity and that “against that background, the estimated legal costs … to which (the client) is said to be liable under her costs agreement with Shine Lawyers seem to me to be extremely high, indeed excessive”. He agreed to seal an estimated costs affidavit Shine had provided, but directed that costs should not include those “associated with the duplication of hundreds of pages of medical reports and the QCAT (Queensland Civil and Administrative) material”.

A Shine spokeswoman said the matter had been settled. She would not reveal the ultimate costs agreement but said the case had been “a very complex matter in light of the alleged mild traumatic brain injury”.

“Shine Lawyers takes its professional and ethical obligations to our clients extremely seriously,” she said.

“Our specialist head trauma team fought hard for our client.”

She said the real issue was the Queensland costs scale, which restricts the amount that lawyers could seek to recover from defendants found liable for plaintiffs’ injuries.

“Defendants ought to pay for a higher proportion of the plaintiff’s legal costs. Queensland is well behind the rest of the country in this regard.”

In the August judgment, Justice Applegarth also referred to an earlier stage in the case. “It is disappointing, to say the least, that prior to the hearing on 11 June, 2021, (her) solicitors had not considered some obvious matters that were highly relevant to the issue of capacity which they asked me to decide,” he said.

“These included the kind of basic legal and financial advice that a person in (Shine’s client’s) situation would require to support her decision-making about investment of the net settlement proceeds … It also concerned me that they had not advised her to make a will.”

The Australian was unable to contact Shine’s former client.

A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said it was not allowed to comment.