THE SPANISH MODEL FOR ATTORNEY FEES
Keywords:
Claim Attorney’s Fees, Attorney Invoice, Legal Service Contract, Legal Service Estimate, Retainer, Retaining fee, Contract, Agreement, Right to reject the Attorney’s Invoice, Professional Fees Criteria, Items fees incorrect, Excessive fees, Real fees for the Attorney’s representation, Execution order money owed, Payment orderAbstract
The objective of this investigation is to identify the problems arising within the procedure itself as well as analyzing jurisprudence in each case. With this in mind, two extremes are analyzed: (1) characterization or dismemberment of the alleged damages to the actual claim proceedings and (2) evaluation of situations occurring in the actual practice, within the proceedings at court.
This investigation examines the casuistry in claim proceedings, under the deduction that this model still is subject to inefficiencies. First, the Judicial Clerk, assigned by the Spanish legislator as having the exclusive task of carrying out the procedure, does not assume the task correctly, reason why the proceedings take excessive time. Second, there is little certainty and assuredness in the valuation of the representation by the attorney, as well as the calculation of fees for each one of the items. The criteria of the Judicial Clerk is sometimes subjective, as supported by consultations with the Bar Association, and as sometimes we also can deduct from jurisprudence; in consequence the results are in prejudice of calculations of items in the invoice. And thirdly, once the accounts have been clarified, in many cases, the attorney may not be able to be paid the total or a partiality of the fees.
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