Richer fees for lawyers. Decree 55 of the Ministry of Justice, published in the Official Gazette of 2 April, updates the amounts applied since summer 2012 and dictates new forensic parameters.
It is a text eagerly awaited by lawyers in the case of settlement of court costs, or in the event that there is no agreement between the client and the lawyer or even when the fee has not been determined in writing.
The National Bar Council has published on its institutional website the table of fees which, for a lawsuit of around 15 euros, provides for an average increase in fees of 130%, from 2100 to 4835 euros. This is because costs have increased in all phases of the judgment, from the study phase to the introduction and treatment phases, up to the decision-making phase.
Among the novelties of the text there is also the elimination of the provision which reduced by 30% the fees of lawyers who assist under legal aid regime.
The president of the Unitary Body for Italian Advocacy, Nicola Marino, was satisfied with the decree and said: “This concludes the process of a measure awaited for too long by Italian lawyers. A small step forward for a lawyer suffocated by a thousand problems. A first and concrete positive gesture from the new minister Orlando”. Marino, however, added that "the real game is that of the tables on the modernization and relaunch of the legal profession which was the subject of discussion in recent weeks with the Keeper of the Seals".
In the decree - it reads - for the payment of the remuneration, account is taken of the characteristics, urgency and value of the activity performed, the importance, nature, difficulty and value of the deal, the subjective conditions of the customer, the results achieved, the number and complexity of the legal and factual issues addressed.
In addition to the fee and the reimbursement of documented expenses in relation to the individual services, the lawyer is also owed a lump sum reimbursement of expenses equal to 15% of the total fee for the service. In the case of judicial conciliation or settlement of the dispute, the payment of the remuneration is regularly increased by up to a quarter of that payable for the decision-making phase, an increase which adds to the amount accrued for the activity carried out previously.
However, at the time of the judicial settlement of the remuneration, the adoption of conduct that hinders the closure of the proceedings in a reasonable time can be negatively evaluated.
