Sorted by Commenter - Ethics - State of California

No. Commenter Position 1
Comment
on Behalf
of Group?
Rule 1.5 Fees for Legal Services.
[Sorted by Commenter]
Rule
Paragraph
19 Johnson, Knut D 1.5(f) effectively eliminates any flat fees for
criminal practitioners despite fact that many
clients prefer the flat fee.
Lawyers will charge higher fees because the
proposal forces lawyers to absorb potential
accounting costs, lose use of fees for
overhead early in a case, and plan against
the potential loss of fees if a client fires the
lawyer.
Hourly billing structure promotes fraud,
inefficiency, overstaffing of cases, and
prolonging rather than shortening litigation.
20 Kahn, Robert A. D Rule presents difficulty for law firms trying to
arrange fee agreements with corporate clients
who demand alternatives to hourly billing,
RRC - 4-200 1-5 - Public Comment Chart - By Commenter - DFT3.1 (10-21-09)RD-KEM-AT-RD.doc
Comment RRC Response
To address the commenter’s concerns but still
provide for enhanced client protection, the
Commission revised the approach to advance fee
payments in paragraph (e) of the Rule to provide as
follows:
(2) a lawyer may charge a flat fee for specified
legal services, which constitutes complete
payment for those services and may be paid
in whole or in part in advance of the lawyer
providing the services. If agreed to in
advance in a writing signed by the client, a
flat fee is the lawyer’s property on receipt.
The written fee agreement shall, in a
manner that can easily be understood by
the client, include the following: (i) the scope
of the services to be provided; (ii) the total
amount of the fee and the terms of
payment; (iii) that the fee is the lawyer’s
property immediately on receipt; (iv) that the
fee agreement does not alter the client’s
right to terminate the client-lawyer
relationship; and (v) that the client may be
entitled to a refund of a portion of the fee if
the agreed-upon legal services have not
been completed.
To address the commenter’s concerns but still
provide for enhanced client protection, the
Commission revised the approach to advance fee
266