Payment for Legal Aid Work

General
Commission fee scales
How to bill the Commission - Certificate of commitment
One bill per certificate
Unused commitment
How the Commission pays you
Your final report

General
The Commission will only pay for work which has been authorised. Authorisation is in the form of a certificate of commitment. The bottom of that certificate forms the tax invoice. In the ordinary course, therefore, certificates are a reliable cumulative record of the maximum we can pay you. If you do not have a certificate, you cannot bill us and we will not pay.

If, in an emergency or short notice situation, you have arranged a conditional grant of aid by telephone or fax, a certificate of commitment should follow by post once the application for aid has been processed. If you have not received a certificate within a couple of weeks of submitting the application, write to the assigning officer.

Normally, if prior approval has not been sought, the Commission will decline to meet those additional costs. However, in rare and exceptional circumstances, (and solely at the Commission's discretion), where the Commission has approved a grant of aid, and is aware of the matter in general, it may subsequently approve and pay costs for an item, or items, not prior approved.

If your client is initially refused aid, but this decision is later reversed on reconsideration or appeal, aid is granted as if from the date of the original decision. This does not apply, of course, if aid is initially refused, but later granted on a new application.

back to top

Commission fee scales
The Commission's scales of fees payable for legally aided work are set out in Appendices 10, 11 and 12. The sums expressed are GST exclusive. The Commission will pay you GST at 10% in addition to the GST exclusive sum claimed. It is a condition of a grant of aid that the practitioner will be paid on the applicable legal aid scale and not on the scale set by the court concerned, or any other. Scales are reviewed from time to time by the Commission and you will be notified of any changes.

The Commission's policy applicable to work done on or after a revised scale of fees comes into operation is expressed: - "All new i.e. initial grants of aid and extensions approved on or after _ _ _ (effective date) will be made in accordance with the following scale".

Private practitioners usually opt to complete the approved work included in Certificates of Commitment granted before the fee rise, at the old rate, and do not seek an extension to the new rate.

The Commission does not unilaterally offer the new rate where a practitioner has elected to bill the work at the old rate, i.e. where an extension is neither sought nor granted. However, where a practitioner seeks an extension, (as per the definition preceding the scales) to be upgraded to the new rates, and sets out the proportion of work to be undertaken after the salient date, the practitioner is entitled to the extension, unless in the opinion of the Commission, all the work has in fact been completed before the effective date of the fee increase.

If an extension is granted, the new rates apply.

back to top

How to bill the Commission - Certificate of commitment
There is no need for you to draw a bill. You are sent an original certificate of commitment/tax invoice. When the work is done, please complete (including a GST calculation at 10% of the claimed fees), sign and return the tax invoice with your letter of report. Your signature attests that the work has been done. This is your tax invoice. We do not pay on any other form of invoice. A sample certificate of commitment can be downloaded here. A sample certificate of commitment is included in Forms.

back to top

One bill per certificate
Normally, therefore, you will not be able to bill until you have used up the commitment certified. This is so, even where the certificate covers disbursements, such as medical reports or counsel fees They will have to await completion of the work. Normally, we will issue a separate certificate for disbursements.

If you are aware that a particular disbursement will need to be paid before your work can be completed, as where it is the practice of an expert witness to require payment of an account before releasing a report, you may ask us to provide separate certificates for your work and for the disbursement. This is particularly relevant where GST may apply to one item, but not another.

If difficulties arise with payment of counsel, for example in a part-heard matter, you should raise this with the assigning officer concerned.

Occasionally, for accounting reasons, we may have to ask you to interim bill us for part of the work certified. This will be rare and we will write to you if it arises.

back to top

Unused commitment
It may happen that a case is completed without all the commitment being used, for instance where charges are withdrawn. In that case, when the work is completed, you should on the tax invoice you complete, bill us for the actual work done, as per the scale.

It may also happen that commitment is not taken up, for instance where the client abandons the case or fails to keep in contact with you. In this case, we need to know so that we cancel the certificate/tax invoice and allocate that commitment elsewhere. For this reason, if we do not receive a report within 6 months of the date of a certificate of commitment, we will cancel the commitment and apply it to another matter. This can be easily avoided by sending us a short report on the matter, showing that the commitment is still needed.

back to top

How the Commission pays you
Your certificate/tax invoice is checked by the assigning officer and, if correct, certified for payment. Practitioners are paid by a bulk cheque to their firm account each month. If any part of your bill is disallowed, a brief explanation will accompany payment. If you think your bill has been wrongly disallowed or reduced, you can seek more information from the assigning officer, and/or appeal to Commissioners.

Payments outside the monthly cheque run will not normally be made. If a practitioner believes that there are such exceptional circumstances prevailing that a cheque outside the normal run should be requested, then such requests should be made to the Director, Deputy Director, or Assignments Manager who are the only authorised officers to consider such requests.

back to top

Your final report
At the conclusion of the matter, you are requested to render all outstanding invoices, and provide a short report as to how the matter has concluded. In criminal matters we need to know the court in which the charges were finalised, the legal outcome and the reason for finalisation. A Case Finalisation Form is included in the Criminal Law Proformas, and may be used or adapted for use by practitioners.

back to top