rad Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 Mod note: A few posts have been removed from this thread due to bickering and posters insulting one another. Please can we keep it civil and get back to discussing the OP's situation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygardener Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 I think you're worry about the salary unreasonably when thinking about whether the bottom line is reasonable or not. IT contractors (as a comparison) have pretty much zero costs, they pay themselves minimum wage or less, they don't buy any materials (except maybe coffee) and their only expense if often travel to a client site. They charge £50/hr, and they are guaranteed work for 37.5hrs/week. A solicitor on the other hand can only charge for the time they actually spend working for a client... And whilst they charge up to 4 times as much, any solicitor running a small business will probably be turning over less than the aforementioned IT contractor and have higher costs (an office for a start). So based on that comparison I don't think they charge an excessive amount. You're comparing an efficient market with a totally inefficient one. If I want to hire an IT contractor I have an enormous range of options open to me which vary hugely in terms of price and service dependent on what I'm trying to achieve. If the IT contractor on £50 an hour wants my business they have to give me a damn good reason why they are worth 8 times more to me than the IT contractor on £50 a day. If I want to hire m'learned friend the cost variance is negligible, if anything. Why, because it's an inefficient market. As our lawyer friends keep repeating, we'd love to make access to justice cost less but the courts make us charge these high fees. So we need to change the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L00b Posted November 27, 2012 Share Posted November 27, 2012 If I want to hire an IT contractor I have an enormous range of options open to me which vary hugely in terms of price and service dependent on what I'm trying to achieve.The same is true of legal service providers. Completely so. A corporate law solicitor is more expensive than a family law solicitor or a PI solicitor. A partner solicitor with 20 years experience is more expensive than a junior solicitor with 2 years experience. Given a same field of practice, a sole practitioner working out of their garden shed or home office is cheaper than an employed or partnered solicitor with office, staff, and other overheads. In that context, if I consider what legal services I provide, in principle they are a commodity: go to any other practitionner with the same badges, anywhere in the country, and you should get substantially the same advice for substantially the same cost (allowing for some geographical weighing): it takes me, at a higher hourly rate, a shorter time to get to the bottom of an issue and give advice, than someone less experienced with a lower hourly rate, so you end up with more or less the same bill for the same service. Swings and roundabout, much of a muchness, etc. There's one constant which holds true though, in this professional field as in any other: you get what you pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x-GiGgLeS-x Posted November 28, 2012 Author Share Posted November 28, 2012 how much more can be possibly thrown at us. I am sure this case is going to end up being decided by who can afford to fight it and who cant. This system sucks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 You're comparing an efficient market with a totally inefficient one. If I want to hire an IT contractor I have an enormous range of options open to me which vary hugely in terms of price and service dependent on what I'm trying to achieve. If the IT contractor on £50 an hour wants my business they have to give me a damn good reason why they are worth 8 times more to me than the IT contractor on £50 a day. If a business wants to hire a skilled developer, then it costs £50/hr. Not £50/day. The range of possibilities might be between £35/hr and £60/hr depending on what skills, how much experience and where abouts in the country. But this end of the country £45 - £50/hr is the going rate. If I want to hire m'learned friend the cost variance is negligible, if anything. Why, because it's an inefficient market. As our lawyer friends keep repeating, we'd love to make access to justice cost less but the courts make us charge these high fees. So we need to change the system. I can't say that I've had to shop around for a solicitor recently, so I can't really comment. Apart from social contact where we don't discuss rates, the only other thing I've had done is conveyancing, and no court is involved obviously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewBiz Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Having had first hand experience of a couple of lawyers, I could see no justification for them charging the fees they did. They were ineffectual, inefficient and spineless, and seemed more intent on drawing the whole process out so they could keep billing their £125+VATish an hour, than reaching any resolution. I have a friend who had, as far as I could see a watertight case from the off. Yet that was again drawn out to ridiculous lengths by lawyers on both sides. The case was eventually settled by the other side, out of court, the day before trial. My friend and the Plaintiff were £0000's of pounds worse off whilst lawyers on both sides were no doubt extremely happy with the 'result' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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