Fees please … Barrister’s billing sliced and diced as unfair and unreasonable … Judge unhappy with thousands of pages of documents … Associated costs blowout … Max Shanahan reports 

Tuesday (February 7, 2023) was a bad day for barrister Christopher Bevan, who will walk away with $224,947 after charging almost six times an original costs estimate for a bankruptcy matter, and providing no updates until slapping a hefty bill on his clients. 

This was the finding as to fair and reasonable fees by NSW Supremo Geoffrey Bellew. 

After providing an initial estimate of $60,000, plus travel and out of pockets, for his work in a bankruptcy annulment matter, Bevan’s total bill came to $349,360. 

Bevan’s briefing solicitor was liable for the fees under the terms of the costs agreement. 

After a “significant breakdown in the professional relationship” between Bevan and the solicitor, the barrister filed an application for an assessment of his costs, claiming an additional $6,983.48 in interest on the side. 

The assessment fell to barrister Michael Eagle, who took a less-than-complementary view of Bevan’s charging practices. He found that the charges did not, in accordance with s.172 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law, represent “a fair and reasonable amount of costs for the work”. 

Eagle knocked $125,000 from the bill, and halved the claimed interest, leaving Bevan – who, according to his profile, “practises primarily” in legal costs, including assessment – with a measly $224,000 for his exertions. 

Bevan took it to a review panel, which upheld Eagle’s original decision, finding that “the hourly and daily charge rates claimed by [Bevan] were not fair and reasonable and the amounts claimed were also not fair and reasonable”. 

Bevan pressed on to the Supreme Court to plead with Justice Geoffrey Bellew for reinstatement of his original bill. 

Bevan’s silk argued that the original agreement as to estimated costs could be enforced as a regular contract and thus could not be voided ab initio, and that such voiding could only occur if the contravention occurred at the same time as the agreement was entered into. 

This didn’t wash with HH: 

“Such a construction runs entirely contrary to the [LPUL’s] objective … of empowering a person to make an informed choice about the legal services that he or she might access, and the costs involved. In the latter case, it is not possible for a person to make any informed choice unless the proper disclosures are made.”

Bellew was clearly riled by the case. Prior to the hearing, Bevan’s solicitor filed more than 2,500 pages of documents for the judge to peruse. At the heating counsel admitted that “not very much of it matters”. 

Bellew took the opportunity to issue some friendly reminders to the legal profession at large. 

“There is a fundamental obligation upon all legal practitioners to give careful consideration to, and to identify, the evidence which is necessary to put before the Court to allow the issues to be determined.”

Bevan’s solicitor “failed to exercise the requisite clinical judgment” expected of a lawyer, and the associated costs blowout of preparing a mountain of documents was “sadly ironic” in the circumstances of the case. 

And thus was written another chapter in the annals of billing. 

After the initial $60,000 (plus GST) estimate, here’s how Bevan’s fees ultimately presented themselves: 

Bevan v Bingham