LATEST NEWS
Angry clients accuse barristers over fees  

Sydney Morning Herald
June 14, 2008		  

TWO barristers regularly briefed by Keddies Lawyers have been caught up in accusations of overcharging that have been levelled against the personal injuries firm.

The barristers, Tim Meakes - already publicly reprimanded for "gross overcharging" two years ago - and David Campbell, SC, are alleged to have overcharged some clients.

Gu Xi Liang was one former Keddies client whose $250,000 in legal fees and expenses included $40,000 for Mr Campbell for work on his case that involved a conference in China four months before the claim was settled in Singapore in 2006. Mr Gu told the Herald: "I never met David Campbell, the senior barrister, ever."

Mr Gu and other clients appear to have been billed twice for Mr Campbell's air fare and accommodation. There is now a difference of opinion between Keddies and Mr Campbell over who paid for these expenses.

When asked to review Mr Campbell's bill in Mr Gu's matter, the barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, said: "Virtually every aspect of this fee note raises a question as to the propriety of the charging."

In another bill, submitted in relation to the Beijing builder's labourer Wang Jin, in which Keddies itemised Mr Campbell's charges, "potential gross overcharging" was reflected in the $185,000 total, Mr Watson concluded. The bill included $34,000 in charges for a China trip that included a day's meeting with Mr Wang on October 31, 2005, and for other meetings in China with Sydney-based doctors and Keddies's lawyers. On that 10-day medico-legal trip Mr Campbell had conferences with plaintiffs injured in accidents in Australia, including Mr Wang and his wife, who were among 28 Keddies clients to be seen by its solicitors.

Mr Meakes, who did not see Mr Wang on this trip, still billed him $14,300 for travelling to and from Shanghai, and for conferences and a loading (meant to compensate a barrister for being away from home). Mr Meakes spent four days in China before flying back for personal reasons.

His total bill for Mr Wang's case, which included three days of his evidence taken on commission the following year in Singapore, was $126,000.

Despite submitting bills for Mr Wang's case of which the combined amount was more than $300,000, the two barristers were not paid. Keddies had submitted a bill of $625,000, which included the barristers' fees, to the lawyers acting for QBE Insurance. QBE had settled Mr Wang's case for $150,000 plus his legal costs.

But when Keddies put in its bill, now conceded to be a "wish list", QBE's lawyers disputed it.
Keddies later agreed to accept a total of $95,000. A letter to the Herald from the firm's three
partners, Russell Keddie, Tony Barakat and Scott Roulstone, stated it would be a "gross
misrepresentation … to conclude that merely because there was a commercial settlement of the costs dispute that the costs and disbursements were excessive in the first place".

They said the barristers had received nothing but had not chased Keddies for their fees.
Claims of overcharging have since been made by some unhappy Chinese clients of Keddies,
some of whom were due to have evidence heard in a special sitting of the NSW District Court in Singapore in 2006.

Since then three of those 10 Singapore circuit clients, and at least 20 others, all with personal injury claims, complained to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner about matters including alleged overcharging by Keddies. The firm has refunded hundreds of thousands of dollars to a number of clients, some of whom signed confidential deeds and withdrew their official complaints.

The Herald understands there is a current complaint in relation to alleged overcharging against Mr Campbell, who has, through his lawyers, said he is prevented from responding in detail due to the legislation under which the commission operates.

Other complaints relate to Mr Meakes, who has not responded to any Herald queries, and
Keddies, which has repeatedly stated it is confident all complaints against it will be dismissed.

Keddies charged most of the 10 clients in Singapore in 2006 at least $10,000 each for first-class air fares and accommodation at the Fullerton Hotel, one of Asia's most expensive hotels, for its legal team, including Mr Campbell. Mr Gu's final bill from Keddies appears to show the Shanghai businessman had been charged twice for Mr Campbell's air fare and accommodation.

Keddies charged Mr Gu $11,691 for travel and accommodation for three lawyers, including Mr Campbell, and an interpreter and transfers to a hotel where neither Mr Gu nor the legal team stayed.

Mr Campbell's bill to Keddies for Mr Gu listed $7500 in "loading including travel, accommodation and sustenance" for that Singapore trip. He also charged Mr Gu $6000 for the same inclusive loading for the preceding medico-legal trip to China in 2005 when he had conferences with some of the 28 Keddies clients.

Mr Watson, when asked to comment on Mr Campbell's charge in Mr Gu's bill of a $6000 loading, said that if it did not include air fares or accommodation it was "way too much". A loading was to be spread, as fairly as possible, between all of the cases, he said.

A written response from the firm stated: "The fact is that Keddies paid for senior counsel's fees, air fares and accommodation for both trips. The air fares were apportioned across the matters that were in the Singapore circuit and we were rightly entitled to seek reimbursement of those air fares and accommodation expenses."

The response also stated: "We believe the amounts claimed in senior counsel's bills in Mr Gu's matter in the sum of $6000 and $7500 for both trips … [to Asia] are loading fees and do not include the actual cost of the air fares and accommodation incurred by senior counsel.

This can be clarified with senior counsel but we feel confident that this is the case."

But Mr Campbell told the Herald that he had paid for his air fares and accommodation. Not only that, his lawyers, Verekers, said he had paid $58,005.05 "out of his own pocket" for travel and accommodation on the two trips to Asia. He had not sought to reclaim it.

Mr Campbell said his professional fees had totalled $147,500 for the 10 Singapore cases.

When the Herald informed Keddies of Mr Campbell's assertion that he paid for himself, the firm wrote back saying that since speaking to Mr Campbell it had come to the realisation that, "although Keddies paid for air fares for Mr Campbell along with other members of the team, Mr Campbell reimbursed Keddies for those expenses".

But Mr Campbell said he paid and that he "has not sought to recover any of that sum [the
$58,005.05 travel and accommodation expenses] from Keddies or the clients".

The confusion regarding who paid for what continued in relation to Mr Meakes, who billed
Keddies $20,000 in total for Mr Gu's casework. He did not reply to the Herald's questions but
Keddies says Mr Meakes paid for some expenses and the firm paid for others. Neither Keddies nor Mr Campbell would give the Herald any receipts, but after checking numerous financial records Keddies said: "In summary, the records show that while at all times travel expenses were paid for by different parties, no client has been overcharged in relation to those travel expenses."

The Keddies partners said Mr Gu's interim and final bills had been examined during his initial
complaint, later dismissed by the commission, and if there had been any instance of overcharging the legal regulator would have noted it.

Mr Meakes was found guilty of professional misconduct for "gross overcharging" in a matter not connected to any Keddies client. In 2006 Justice Murray Tobias of the NSW Court of Appeal said that his peers would regard his conduct in grossly overcharging a vulnerable client "as disgraceful or dishonourable". It was "inexcusable" that Mr Meakes did not give sworn evidence to explain himself and open to inference that he was "dishonest", the judge said.

Mr Watson reviewed Mr Campbell's charges for Mr Wang and called them "potentially constituting gross overcharging".

Offcanvas Menu