KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — Market forces will push up legal fees due to increased responsibilities caused by a more efficient court system rather than arbitrary changes in fees by the Bar Council, its president Ragunath Kesavan said today.
But he said the lawyers could mitigate it by increasing legal aid work for those unable to afford rising fees.
“It’s more labour-intensive for the lawyer... and that’s why it’s going to go up,” Ragunath (picture) told The Malaysian Insider.
He said court cases could no longer be postponed as easily as before, now that they must be settled within three to six months instead of two years previously.
“Everybody wants efficiency... but it comes with a price, and this is the price. You have to pay. You can’t expect lawyers to absorb the cost anymore. They run a commercial business.”
Ragunath also said the additional financial burden this increase would place on poorer Malaysians seeking legal services could be mitigated by formulating and funding a comprehensive legal aid scheme.
He said Malaysia already had one of the most proactive legal aid services in the world, with the Bar Council putting in 20,000 to 30,000 hours of pro bono work per year at 15 legal aid centres in Peninsular Malaysia.
Bar Council Legal Aid Centre (BCLAC) Kuala Lumpur chairman Ravinder Singh said lawyers have so far “come through” for legal aid but were starting to focus more on paying clients and less on volunteer work.
“With the current system of speeding up trials... lawyers automatically now are unable to take up legal aid files as much,” he said.
“It becomes a little less attractive to do legal aid when you push for KPIs (key performance indicators).”
However, Ravinder hoped the National Legal Aid Foundation, to be launched next week, will help address the problem by offering a cash incentive to pick up pro bono work.
He said the foundation, a collaboration between the government, Bar Council and private sector, will make it “much more attractive” for lawyers to help out.
Legal aid centres would continue to function and offer help for civil and family cases while the new foundation would take care of criminal cases, Ravinder added.
