Quite frankly we don't understand your complaints. Our legal fees are exactly the same as before, they are unchanged.
If you are able to find any other law firm that gives such quality service in fluent English at such competitive fees let us know. I suppose you are referring to our litigation service which is what we are specialised in. Our standard minimum legal fees have been posted publicly many times over in different websites:
E.g.
1.-
Aifos Hipodromo - Lawbirds option
started by johnny105 8th June 2008 9:59 PM
“quote”.
We will need the following amount:
1. - Legal fees: 4.000€ plus VAT (16%) = 4.640€.
2. - Provision of funds Procurator: 1.750€
3. - Provision of funds to pay a certificate from a valuer to establish the compensation we are going to ask the judge: 500€
4. - Provision of funds for other expenses: 150€.
TOTAL: 7.040€.
2.
solicitors fees Terry
In any case the breakdown of our standard litigation fees would be as follows:
1.- Solicitor's fees 4,000€ plus 16% VAT amounting to 4,640€
2.- Advocate's fees 1,300€ (which includes first ruling, second ruling and execution)
3.- Sundries 300€ (couriers fees, registered letters, etc.) the balance of which if unused is refunded to you.
4.- On top of our legal fees we also charge 10% on all the recovered amounts (stage payments, legal interests and compensation -if applicable-).
So on average our standard litigation fees for a case similar to yours would amount to a total of 6,240€.
If we win the First hearing you are not charged to go onto a Second hearing (should the defendant file an appeal). Should we lose the First hearing then we would request additional fees to file the appeal at your choice which would amount on average to approx 1,800€.
On filing a lawsuit we will also request from you an amount to secure a provisional embargo plus additional advocate's fees. This amount is placed before the law court. Please request our litigation FAQ in which this point is explained clearly to avoid any misunderstandments. Often there's really no point in litigating in these cases if no provisional embargo is requested from the judge. Please read our article on the matter.
Moreover, if you bother to read the above quotes on litigation fees, not only have we not increased them,
we've lowered them! We've been able to achieve this thanks to our high volumes in litigation which has enabled us to negotiate more competitive advocate's fees on behalf of our clients.
We have never accepted a no-win, no-fee as it's forbidden under the rules of the Spanish Law Society. On us taking a case we have to pay the procurador (advocate) up front. Supposing we were allowed to do as you post we would go bankrupt within 3 months if we were to take hundreds of cases meaning that we would have to pay hundreds of thousands of euros out of our own pocket up front to advocates. Litigation takes 2-3 years on average, so we would have to wait that long to recover our funds.
As we know our trade, we cannot afford to do this and neither can any other Spanish law firm. Comparing the English legal system with the Spanish one is simply not knowing what you are writing of.
Regarding these comments of yours:
If you've ever been a client of Lawbird you should already know we've always charged 10% on all the recovered amounts. This is not something new as you seemingly imply. In all our Letters of Engagement it is reflected as well as in our F.A.Q. on litigation and in all our emails requesting quotes on litigation fees.
As for your comment on the
whaking fee again it just shows you do not know what you are writing as our standard legal fees for litigation (4000€) remain
unchanged. I think your friend or yourself ought to shop around requesting for legal quotes on litigation and you will be able to confirm we have probably the most competitive fees.
In the second link above to another thread on solicitor's fees, a very well-known internet lawyer was requesting almost 23,000€ up front for a case in which we would only charge 6,240€ (of which only 4,000€ are strictly our legal fees, the rest are expenses). On us being successful we would additionally charge 10% on all the recovered amounts.
You can hardly be more competitive than that, almost a 400% difference in legal fees.
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