Hourly rates at the richest legal firms in the UK now reach £1,600, according to a leading costs expert who says he will leave the profession ‘ashamed’ of what it has become.
Jim Diamond, author of 2022 book The Legal Extortion Racket, spoke out today as he released the fourth and final version of his free Client Guide to Controlling External Fees.
‘I joined the legal profession in 1979 with such joy from my working-class backgound in Liverpool,’ Diamond told the Gazette. ‘I leave what is now an industry of making money with a deep feeling of shame about how it has ended up.
‘From the greed of the law firms, to the pathetic inadequacies of the legal regulators, I will depart with what is perhaps a "F.U. moment". That has been producing this document, to educate buyers of legal services in order to control the madness of legal costs which are totally out of control.’
Diamond is a long-time critic of the fees charged by elite firms and for several years was the only source of intelligence on how they have increased.
A report last October by PwC disclosed that the top 10 UK law firms were charging clients almost 40% more per hour than they did in 2019. But Diamond added: ‘They state top rates for UK law firms are over £1,000. My research shows top hourly rates are closer to £1,600. In the six years since I drafted the third version of the client guide, the top-100 law firms in the UK have increased turnover by about £10bn. The increase is more than the total turnover of the top-100 in the early 2000s.’
Diamond worked for the likes of Clifford Chance predecessor firm Clifford Turner and Allen & Overy in the 1980s and 1990s before setting up independently.
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