DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN the State Claims Agency and solicitors over the cause of excessively high legal fees in medical actions cannot disguise the fact that the public is getting bad value for money. Fault may lie on both sides. Early settlements and acknowledgment of liability by the Health Service Executive would certainly reduce costs. But, on a more fundamental level, considerable savings could be made if legal fees were based on the amount of work done, rather than the size of damages awarded. It is not a new idea.
Nearly four years ago, former minister for justice Michael McDowell commissioned an investigation into legal fees because of growing public disquiet. It recommended, and the Government accepted, that all solicitors and barristers should be required to specify the amount of work done for their public and private clients and provide itemised bills based on an hourly or a daily rate. It urged the courts to discriminate in awarding costs. And it proposed the establishment of a legal costs regulatory body. Two years later, an official advisory group approved these reforms.
The OECD and other economic agencies have been urging reform of the legal, medical, pharmaceutical and other professions for many years. But change has been at a glacial pace because of the power of the vested interests concerned.
Legal costs in a major medical negligence case add about €1 million, or 25 per cent, to the overall State bill. Ciarán Breen, director of the State Claims Agency, says this charge bears no relationship to the amount of work carried out by lawyers, but is based on the size of the financial damages awarded. This assertion has been challenged by solicitors who, in turn, blame high legal costs on delays by the HSE and the State Claims Agency in admitting medical liability and in withholding information.
It is clear that inflated charges have been imposed on the exchequer and on citizens who have recourse to the courts. The Government knows what has to be done. Two official reports allow it no wriggle-room. Solicitors and barristers should be legally required to specify the work they have done, and the time involved, when they present a bill for their fees and charges to any customer. Members of the public deserve no less. Ministers have prevaricated and ducked their responsibilities for too long. If they are serious about securing value for money and removing obstacles to growth in the economy, all forms of professional feather-bedding must end.