Unofficial lawyers have new rules for calculating their fees from August 2. According to the New Ordinance, the payment of these professionals will now be made based on the time spent and the complexity of the proceedings, allowing them to perform more acts in the courts, including mediation, arbitration and conservatory.
One of the main adjustments concerns the remuneration of interventions in due diligence or hearings. The presence of unofficial lawyers, whether in person or remote (when authorized by the judge or prosecutor), will be paid to 22 euros per hour, from the actual beginning of the act to its completion, suspension, postponement or interruption.
For summary and very summary processes, a maximum limit of daily fees were established. Thus, regardless of the number of interventions performed on a single day, the payment will not exceed the highest expected amount of such processes, plus the amount corresponding to the intervention per hour.
Another relevant change is the payment of judicial resources. The fees of unofficial lawyers will only be due when the appeal is admitted in court. If it is not accepted, the lawyers will only be paid for the complaint of the decision of non -admission if it is upheld, as stipulated in the fee table.
The processes of special complexity, which guarantee a higher remuneration, will only be recognized by judicial order. That is, lawyers will remain dependent on the judge’s decision to know how much they will receive for these services. If a process is considered of special complexity, the fees will increase 25% over the amount provided for in the table applicable to the process in question.
The New Ordinance also introduces changes in the appointment of lawyers for compulsory assistance to the defendant. The appointment will be based on the list of prevention scale of the Bar Association and may be carried out by the Secretariat of the Court, the Public Prosecution Service or the Criminal Police bodies.
If the defendant has not yet constituted a lawyer or the defendant appointed to the due diligence, the appointment will be upheld for the following acts. However, if the defendant expresses the intention to hire a lawyer, this appointment may be replaced.
According to the magazine, in cases where one lawyer appointed is replaced by another, the fees were also adjusted. If the first lawyer has not had any intervention in the process, he will receive a reference unit. If you have already participated actively, the payment will be of four reference units, and may be higher if you submit a request proving the steps performed.
In addition to the fees review, the Ordinance also changes the reference unit used in the calculation of payments. The unit amount goes from 25.5 euros to 28 euros, reflecting an increase in state pay to unofficial lawyers.
The basis of the Bar, Fernanda de Almeida Pinheiro, initially considered the new rules a breakthrough. “This is a historic and positive moment for law, which, after more than 20 years of waiting, finally gets a revision of the fee table,” he said. According to the president, the changes represent a global increase of 7 million euros, which should be reflected in higher values for each professional.
However, a few days later, the banal speech became more critical. In an opinion article published in Morning Mailwarned for possible setbacks in the new fee table. “If it is true that the proposal provides for some increases, there are also unacceptable setbacks. The government gives one hand and takes it with the other, ”he said.
One of the greatest concerns of the Bar Association is the family and insolvency processes, whose fees were reduced. In addition, the withdrawal of payment by appeals not accepted in court was seen as an attack on citizens’ rights to appeal from court decisions.
Fernanda de Almeida Pinheiro stressed that the law cannot accept the reduction of the amounts paid for their services, especially after two decades without review of the table. “No profession would accept the reduction of amounts in the payment of services, and the lawyers will not accept either,” he said.
For this reason, the president appealed to the government to correct the ordinance before its official publication. Otherwise, it has ensured that the law will take steps to contest the new rules. “The law will be heard,” he concluded.
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