Civil legal aid block fee accounts: conduct & waiting

Conduct and Waiting

This fee covers:

  • waiting; and
  • sitting behind counsel, where counsel conducts the hearing; and
  • where you are conducting any hearing

which is not otherwise prescribed (including any continued hearing and ancillary hearing on expenses or other miscellaneous subsequent hearing).

A fee of one unit is payable for each quarter hour.

No fee is payable for the attendance at an options hearing or continued options hearing.

If legal aid is granted for proceedings in relation to a commercial action the conduct and waiting fee is chargeable for attendances at ‘case management conferences’.

Aggregation of time engaged in court

The fee for conduct and waiting is payable on the total time engaged per day and is payable cumulatively between waiting and conduct time, rounded up to the nearest 15 minutes.

The fee is payable:

(a)   from the time appointed by the court for the hearing; or

(b)   from the conclusion of any other business (including non-legal aid cases) ending prior to the hearing;

whichever is the shorter.

No charge for waiting time can be claimed during the period where the court adjourns for lunch.

In this section