Law on Legal Profession (NN NN 09/94, 117/08, 50/09, 75/09, 18/11), Statute of the Croatian Bar Association (NN 115/13), Attorney’s Code of Professional Conduct (NN 64/07, 72/08) and Tariff of fees and charges for lawyer’s work (NN 142/12).
The client signs power of attorney / authorization for representation in certain legal actions, or for conducting litigation. In case the client gives the authority to a lawyer to conduct the proceedings on his behalf, the lawyer is entitled to file a complaint, withdraw it, admit the claim / waive the claim, reach the settlement, submit remedy and waive/give up the remedy, require the issuance of security measures, submit an application for enforcement or security and take all other necessary actions…
The duration of the court proceeding depends mostly on the competent court and the type of the procedure (criminal, civil, infringement or administrative), and subsequently on the complexity of the case, factual background of case.
The outcome of litigation is hard to predict, and therefore it is not professional to guarantee to clients the success in litigation.
The lawyer is obliged to keep all the information he learned during the process of providing legal services confidential, whether he learned it from the client or some other way. The lawyer – client privilege applies during the whole duration of the process and upon the process end, unless the client allows the removal of lawyer-client privilege.
The fee is calculated according to the Bar Tariff of The Croatian Bar Association.
The tariff is a points based system for different legal actions, depending forwhat kind of procedure the legal assistance is provided (e.g. drafting of complaints, representation at a hearing in court, for operations carried out outside the courthouse, crime scene operations and similar.).
The final amount is obtained by summing the points for the legal actions taken, and multiplying this sum with the amount of 10 Croatian Kuna, which is the value of one point according to the current tariff.
For example, a price for compiling a lawsuit in which the amount of the dispute case is from 10.000 Croatian Kuna to 100.000 kn will be 1.000 Croatian Kuna (Tbr.7.-1), for meeting in person in order to get legal advice it will be additional 500 Croatian Kuna (Tbr.30.-1) for every hour, for drawing up contract for transfer of real estate ownership for the property valued 500.000 Croatian Kunait will be 6.250,00 Croatian Kuna (Tbr.29.-1), and so on.
In addition to this way of calculating legal fees, in criminal and civil law matters, the lawyers and clients may agree on remuneration for work on an hourly rate basis, where the upper limit of the agreed percentage may not exceed 30% of the total amount earned by the Client.
The cost of the actual expense occurred in order to finalize the job (expenses for telephone, postal, banking services, expenses for transportation and daily allowance if tasks should be performed outside the office of the Law Firm and so on), will also be added to the final payment amount.
The expenses of the opposing side depend on whether the opposing side has hired a lawyer in the first place, and further on the amount of the value of the dispute. Besides this, the amount of the court expenses depends on whether the procedure demands expert witnesses and how complex this expertise was.
Forced collection procedure, or enforcement is a separate procedure that takes place after the final judgement in civil or some other proceeding and there are a few ways for its implementation.
The client has the right to revoke the power of attorney at any time, without giving any reasons. In this case, the lawyer is not required to continue to represent the client for another 30 days.If the lawyer is the one canceling the power of attorney, he is then required to continue providing legal assistance for 30 days.
The lawyer may decide to have a lawyer trainee employed at their firm replace them in representing a client, with limitations prescribed by special laws.
Law Firm Kasalo & Raić Ltd.
Poljička cesta 26D 21000 Split
Graščica 25E 10000 Zagreb
