A District Court judge described an ongoing and expensive legal bill dispute between a firm and its former client as a “sorry saga”.
Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers, a firm that has since permanently closed, has been locked in a dispute with former client Connor Malouf – on behalf of his son – over a $152,801.90 legal bill.
In a decision to set aside a review panel’s May 2023 costs determination, NSW District Court’s Judge Robert Weber SC described the events that preceded it as a “sorry saga of costs”.
After Malouf’s offer to settle the matter for $55,000 was rejected, Mavrakis & Associates had it assessed by a costs assessor. Malouf then applied to have this decision reviewed by the costs review panel.
The hearing of the appeal took two days, involved a 588-page court book, and approximately 60 pages of written submissions.
“It is thus not difficult to understand that the amount spent in pursuing costs came to exceed the amount in issue,” Judge Weber said.
In his recent written decision, Judge Weber found the review panel was “clearly erroneous” to have found the firm’s costs to be nil when the underlying litigation was yet to be resolved.
While he accepted there had yet to be a determination of the substantive proceedings, as noted by the review panel, Judge Weber said it was not for it, in reality, to “apply the costs capping provisions when the outcome of the proceedings was not known”.
Judge Weber did agree with the panel’s consideration of a “very little argument” on non-disclosure and determined it in the firm’s favour.
The panel then went on to undertake a line-by-line assessment.
“[Malouf] argued for a much wider case of non-disclosure before the review panel. I do not consider that this was an appropriate course … These non-disclosures are irrelevant to the plaintiff’s costs when they have been assessed,” Judge Weber found.
Judge Weber said the appropriate order would be to determine the proceedings as one reinstating the certificate for determination of costs assessment, which was produced in October 2022.
Malouf was also ordered to pay the Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers’ costs.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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