Change firm! This sounds ludicrous, although not necessarily surprising ;) If the solictor is charging on a time basis, they usually have pretty sophisticated management software which manages their 'billable hours'. This software includes onscreen timers which they start and stop when working on a specific piece of work. From the client's point of view, this obviously involves a degree of trust (does the lawyer stop the timer when taking a trip to the loo?...). Although we often demand a fixed fee, if we do commission work on a time basis, we always demand a breakdown of the billable hours. This is simply a report that our lawyer generates from his system and in theory takes him no time at all. To be charged for this would be absurd...

On 20:50:52 7 January 2004 Alex Chudnovsky wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I have an interesting situation here where my solicitor
>sent me final invoice where they charge me around 2 hours
>of work for preparation of previously sent detailed
>breakdown of fees they charged me, ie how many hours for
>what task at what rate was done - initially they only
>given me bottom figure with list of tasks (no timings or
>rates), after I commented that I find this invoice not
>acceptable due to lack of time/rates (I pay by time not by
>task), they came back with that detailed invoice in which
>they mentioned amount that is due for refund. Now, 5
>months later, they sent final invoice from which it
>follows that they want money for preparing that detailed
>breakdown - my question is - how did they know what to
>charge me in the first place if they did not have that
>detailed break down - they could not just pull figures
>from the air?
>
>Am I missing something here?

Oh dear - they got my angry call yesterday told that will call me back - never happened. But after I got back home I found a letter with cheque for £120 from them asking me to confirm receipt. No apologies, no nothing!

Well thats the end of this story, valuable lessons learnt the hard way.