One For the Lawyers...

A lawyer, instead of saying that two plus two make four, would say:

"If by that particular arithmetical rule known as addition, we desired to arrive at the sum of two integers added to two integers, we should find - and I assert this boldly, ans without fear of successful contradiction - we, I repeat, should find by the particular arithmetical formula before mentioned - and I hold myself perfectly responsible for the assertion that I am about to make - we should find that the sum of the two integers added to the two other integers would be four."

from Jokes, Quotes, and One Liners - Volume 2 by Herbert V Prochnow and Herbert V Prochnow Jr.

Fining Lawyers

Now here is a thought!

If any bill, answers, replication, or rejoinder, shall be found of an immoderate length, both the party and the counsel under whose hand it passeth shall be fined.

Sir Francis Bacon (17th Century)

Legal Writing

Are lawyers good writers?

I should apologize, perhaps, for the style of this bill. I dislike the verbose and intricate style of modern English statutes ... You however can easily correct this bill to the taste of my brother lawyers, by making every other word a "said" or "aforesaid" and saying everything over two or three times so as that nobody but we of the craft can untwist the diction, and find out what it means.

Thomas Jefferson (1817)

Lawyers

Something to ponder for all the lawyers out there!

They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

Sir Thomas More -- Utopia (1516)

Keddies Lawyers -- An Update

Today's Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the allegations against Keddies Lawyers for professional misconduct, which includes falsifying documents and overcharging, is drawing many past clients out of the proverbial woodwork and many of these former clients consider themselves to be victims and have supporting evidence to "prove" their claims.

The claims of the clients will still have to go through the mill so to speak. It must be noted that none of the allegations are yet to be proven against Keddies. Nevertheless, the most recent former client to come out of the woodwork, Ms. Hsu Li Ching (photo), who has stated unequivocally that she was asked to sign forms that included blank spaces for compensation amounts to be claimed and paid as well as blank spaces for dates and other important information.

Ms. Hsu has received compensation cheques totalling some AUD 130,000 but she is unsure whether this represents the total amount awarded or it is the amount she receives after Keddies fees and expenses are deducted. I would be guessing this is the net amount after fees and other expenses have been deducted as a final bill was never sent to her with respect to the payout or the fees deducted.

The longer this goes on and the more digging that gets done the more horror stories emerge. Another former Keddies client received less than a third of her AUD 150,000 payout after Keddies fees and expenses were deducted. The client in this case was a Ms. Cissy Chen who after suffering her compensation claimable accident returned to Beijing. Keddies sent its then Chinese Liaison Officer to Beijing to get signatures on documents and Ms. Chen was one of the clients that were alleged to have signed documents.

It must be noted that the Chinese Liaison Officer in this instance is an Australian Citizen, Mr. Lee Sheng. Mr. Lee is now involved in a legal dispute with Keddies as he has since been dismissed from his Keddies employment. However, the signature of Mr. Lee appears on the forms supposedly signed by Ms. Chen but unfortunately when the dates signed are compared to Mr. Lee's passport one finds that Mr. Lee was not even in Beijing on those dates.

In conjunction with the earlier post it is clear that a pattern of overcharging is emerging. It is going to be interesting to see how Keddies justifies fees that are regularly taking upwards of 65% of the compensation payments awarded to Keddies clients.

I guess the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner still has some work to do yet in order to finalize the complaints against Keddies Lawyers and particularly the claim by Russell Keddie that his firm has never demanded that clients sign forms with blank spaces.

Watch this space...

Law Firms and Overcharging

If you ever wondered why lawyers and law firms have a bad reputation then it is cases like this one that provide the bad rap! NSW's largest specialized personal injury law firm is fighting allegations that it has overcharged clients and falsified documents to claim larger portions of any compensation payments awarded to their clients.

The firm is Keddies Lawyers. I used to have to walk passed them to get to my office at the Sydney Regional Aboriginal Corporate Legal Service. Maybe they have moved to bigger premises or something. It seems that they could afford it.

I am not against lawyers making money but they need to do it fair and square like everyone else. However, it must be noted that so far that Keddies has not been found guilty of any breaches to date but within the last 18 months there have been some 25 claims placed with the legal regulator by unhappy Keddies clients and some of these are still pending.

Allegations and claims are flying thick and fast from all sides. A respected NSW Barrister, Geoffrey Watson SC, says it is one of "the worst allegations of overcharging I have ever heard." It is his view that legal fees should not regularly exceed compensation by a factor of two or more. If legal fees do exceed compensation in this way on a regular basis then there is something inherently wrong in the way fees are levied.

Some of the allegations include Keddies charging some AUD 800,000 in fees on an AUD 3.5 million payout. Other allegations include fees of AUD 215,000 on a payout of just AUD 300,000, meaning that Keddies charged almost 72% of the payout in fees. However, the case that resulted in the raft of allegations was the case involving Gu Xi Liang. He claims to have been talked into agreeing to settle his case for AUD 50,000 in 2006. However, he was later to find out that Keddies had settled on hos behalf for AUD 300,000 and then claimed AUD 250,000 in fees and expenses. This means that the victim here received just 20% of the payout.

Strangely, Keddies has started repaying former clients who have lodged complaints with the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner. To date some AUD 500,000 has been paid including payments of AUD 40,000 and AUD 60,000 to the daughter of Gu. Russel Keddie, the Managing Partner, does not accept that these payments are in any way an admission of wrong doing but rather they are simply a good will gesture to a particularly unhappy number of clients. The above photo is of Russell Keddie and Mr. Gu.

Keddies are maintaining that they have acted ethically at all times and I guess the investigation process will determine the validity of that claim. However, one of the allegations includes a time sheet where the relevant lawyer, David Marocchi, has billed 22 hours of his time on one day and billed fees of some AUD 9,500 for those hours. Marocchi has denied that he has falsified documents and palmed of the allegations as typing errors and duplicate entries. Sounds like a deer caught in the headlights to me. The classic example of the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Whether Keddies is guilty or not of any breach of the law is in someways secondary to the investigation process. The investigation must be above board and let the cards fall where they may. The reality is that the only way to restore confidence in the profession is to see that the rules are applied and wrong-doing is punished.

Todung Mulya Lubis - Part II

I have been reading around as I do when there is a story that interests me! The TML story is one that interests me for a number of reasons. But prominent among these is that the decision to disbar the man seems excessive and it seems political and it sets a bad precedent. The decision has the hallmarks of a hatchet job...at least TML seems to agree with an assessment such as this one!

This is what TML is quoted as saying to the Asia Sentinel:

In a telephone interview with Asia Sentinel, Mulya Lubis called the decision “totally baseless and unlawful” and said he has little hope of winning an appeal.

“For me this is a conspiracy of corrupt lawyers who feel troubled and disturbed by my stand to play by the rules and consistently fight against corruption,” he said. “The judgment is outrageous and has killed my life, violated my right to practice law, and defied common sense and justice. I will appeal, but I am losing hope in the integrity of the Bar Association. The legal profession is rotten.”

The decision although a ban for life and in spite of the fact that TML himself feels like there is little hope on appeal, I have a sneaky suspicion that he will not be lost forever to the legal profession either here or Indonesia. If PERADI is seen to be too political and too concerned with vested interests, then it is going to come under pressure to either reform or be pushed aside.

There is a new advocates association in the making with a preliminary congress style meeting to be held in the very near future. So, perhaps this might not be the end after all for TML.

Anyone interested in this topic of ethics and ethical violations by Indonesian lawyers only need do a Google search to find that there are lawyers still practicing in Indonesia who have been alleged to have committed as serious, if not more serious, violations of the code of ethics...If you cannot find it on Google then drop me a note and I will drop some names for you to search for!