Consultation on legal fees for environment JRs
The Government has opened a public consultation on plans to introduce a scale of legal fees that would apply to certain environmental judicial reviews.
The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment says that the aim of the proposal is to bring “greater predictability and proportionality” to the State's legal costs in such cases.
The measure, which is provided for in section 294 of the Planning and Development Act 2024, was included in the Government’s action plan to speed up the delivery of key infrastructure, which was published earlier today (3 December).
Levels of complexity
Minister Darragh O’Brien said that he expected the consultation to attract “strong and divergent views”.
Interested parties can make submissions from now until Thursday 15 January (5.30pm).
The main elements of the consultation document are:
- Separate scales of legal fees are proposed for standard, complex, and very complex cases,
- The level of complexity will be considered in terms of legal complexity only,
- The presiding judge will determine the level of complexity of the court case,
- A proposed fees structure is based on a number of trigger points that would take place during the course of the hearing,
- A list of suggested trigger points has been proposed in the report,
- The parties will agree the achievement of the trigger points and the appropriate fee to be paid; in the event of no agreement between the parties, the judge will be the final arbiter, and
- Separate fees have been identified for solicitors, junior counsel and senior counsel.
The Law Society is in the process of drafting a submission in relation to this consultation process.
While recognising the relatively short deadline, the Law Society is inviting all solicitors to provide any input that they would like to see being reflected in its submission.
Input should be sent to policyteam@lawsociety.ie in advance of the official deadline.