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Zander on Moorhead on costs

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07 October 2011 / Michael Zander KC
Issue: 7484 / Categories: Opinion , Costs
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Are lawyers breaking the rules on costs & transparency? Michael Zander QC

When it comes to lawyers’ charges, the basic idea is that the client will receive disinterested advice from the lawyer as to the options, including alternatives, that the client will understand the pros and cons and then give his informed consent to what is agreed to be the way forward. Empirical evidence shows, however, that this basic idea is false. Too often the lawyer’s advice is not disinterested; he does not spell out the alternatives; the client does not properly understand what is agreed; there is no informed consent.

This is the thesis advanced by Professor Richard Moorhead in a 25-page article in the current issue of Legal Studies, a quarterly journal published by the Society of Legal Scholars (R Moorhead Filthy lucre: lawyers’ fees and lawyers’ ethics—what is wrong with informed consent? (2011) 31 LS 345).

Professor Moorhead’s basis is three separate pieces of research in

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