Detailed Provisions Payment of fees for legal work Section 96: Restriction on additional legal fees
284.This section provides that solicitors who obtain payments for legal work under the scheme in relation to a redress application may not also charge their clients separately for work carried out in relation to the same application. The effect of this is that solicitors will not be able to top up the fee they receive from the redress scheme and recoup fees over and above that which is paid by scheme. Applicants who access legal advice funded by the redress scheme will be able to keep the entirety of their redress payment, without further legal fees being deducted or requested separately by their solicitor in relation to work that is already covered by the redress scheme’s legal fees provisions.
285.Subsection (3) provides that although applicants and potential applicants may get some advice on civil litigation in the context of whether they should sign a waiver or instead pursue litigation, the solicitor is not prevented from having separate funding arrangements for legal fees with their client in relation to that advice on civil litigation, to the extent that the advice and assistance instructed went beyond that required or appropriate as part of the legal work undertaken in making, or proposing to make, an application to the redress scheme.