Legal fees
Legal fees are expenses that arise when using legal services .
Germany
As a matter of principle, lawyers, as the body responsible for administering justice, should only compete with one another in terms of quality and not also in price, in the interests of providing the highest possible legal representation for those seeking justice. In order to achieve this goal, the minimum lawyer fees are stipulated by law. Only above these minimum fees will the legislature also accept price competition. Deviating agreements e.g. B. according to the time required are generally permissible and also customary in the market, but must not lead to the statutory minimum fees being undercut.
Outside of judicial activity, in particular in purely advisory matters, the legislature has meanwhile refrained from stipulating minimum fees and thus basically allowed price competition. Theoretically, the lower limit is formed by professional law and good morals, which, however, are not substantiated by law and are therefore hardly enforceable. In the consulting area, as with other services, the agreed remuneration or, in the absence of such, the customary local remuneration applies, whereby to determine the latter, reference is often made to the statutory fee law, which is no longer intended to regulate the pure consulting area.
Fee agreements are very common in consulting mandates due to the lack of a legal stipulation. Fee agreements are also regularly made in court proceedings, i.e. proceedings regulated by fee law, because the legal regulations are regularly perceived as inadequate. In particular, the idea of cross-subsidizing high-value litigation in favor of low-litigation litigation is rejected in practice, since neither the clients with high litigation values nor lawyers want to allow the law on fees to subsidize low-litigation litigation. In practice, this means that in disputes with low property values it is regularly difficult to obtain adequate legal representation without a fee agreement. This deficiency is compensated by the advisory assistance or the public legal information.
In the Federal Republic of Germany , the lawyer’s fees are generally regulated by law in individual cases, unless otherwise agreed. They can be found in the Lawyers' Remuneration Act (RVG) since July 1, 2004 . Previously, the fees were regulated in the Federal Lawyers' Fees Regulation (BRAGO).
Depending on the area of activity, whether the lawyer is active in criminal, civil or administrative proceedings, different fees apply.
A rough distinction is made between sentence framework fees (e.g. in civil law ) and amount framework fees (e.g. in criminal and social law ).
In the case of fixed rate fees, the fees are calculated depending on the value in dispute or the subject matter according to certain fee rates, which in turn depend on the degree of difficulty, the scope and the importance of the matter. The lawyer's liability risk also plays a role in the RVG. The respective fee rate can be found in the remuneration list for the Lawyers' Remuneration Act, which contains a description of typical legal activities. On the basis of the fee rate, which, for example, regularly provides for a procedural fee of 1.3 for taking first-instance legal proceedings before the civil court and a regular fee of 1.2 for attending first-instance court appointments (No. 3100 of the remuneration list for the Lawyers' Remuneration Act) determine the attorney's fee with the help of the table of values.
The maximum amount fees are independent of the amount in dispute. Here the RVG specifies an amount framework for a specific activity. Within this framework, the lawyer determines the fee, also according to the scope, degree of difficulty and importance of the matter.
In addition to the clearly legally regulated fees, there is also the option of concluding a fee agreement in the event of an out-of-court activity of the lawyer. A corresponding agreement should be concluded before the lawyer commences work. In the area of lower amounts in dispute, the agreements are often higher than the fees regulated in the RVG. This is generally permissible after clarification. For high amounts in dispute, such as B. in trademark and domain law, the fees freely agreed out of court are often below the fees regulated in the RVG.
Legal fees can often be regressed. Occasionally they are taken over by the state, e.g. B. in the context of legal aid or also in the case of acquittals in criminal law or in prevailing against the state in public law. In contentious proceedings, the legal fees are also regularly imposed on the unsuccessful party. However, this does not mean that the lawyer would have to collect his fees there, but only to a reimbursement claim in favor of the prevailing party. In practice, this means above all that the victorious party bears the full risk of insolvency on the other side, because it absolutely owes the legal fees itself and is only referred to the possibly invalid reimbursement claim against the other side.
On August 1, 2013, the second cost modernization law is to come into force. This means that people who "want to enforce their rights in court will have to dig deeper into their pockets", explains the chairman of the GDV Association , Dr. Jörg von Fürstenwerth, the effects of the law. The GDV expects an increase in claims payments for court and legal fees of 16 percent.
Switzerland
In Switzerland , legal fees (usually called tariffs) are regulated by the cantons and the federal government in laws and ordinances, whereby different approaches apply in each canton and at the federal government (the latter in proceedings before federal courts). The lawyers are free to structure their fees within the specified price range. As a rule, a distinction is made between tariffs based on effort and the amount in dispute , whereby surcharges for special work can be charged for the latter. Compensation based on expenditure is customary in criminal law, poor law and in the case of an indefinite amount in dispute; remuneration based on the amount in dispute in civil law for a certain or determinable amount in dispute.
Austria
In Austria , the legal fees are based on the Lawyers' Fees Act and the general fee criteria for lawyers. In addition, a free fee agreement is also possible, for example based on the hourly rate.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Legal fees increase on August 1, 2013 , last accessed on July 16, 2013.
- ↑ Lukas Müller: Unpaid justice, Lexwiki.ch, explained in an understandable way, January 2015
- ↑ Lukas Müller / Sandro E. Obrist / Patrik Odermatt, Controversial point of party compensation - the criterion of the necessity for professional representation to determine the party compensation. Current Legal Practice, 26 (2018) 979 ff. With information on lawyers' fees, the creation of the fee note and the calculation of the party compensation in the process.
