Fee for divorce case

For any lawyer you are meeting ask 10 prior references. Speak to them and get an idea. There are no hard and fast rules on this and would always depend upon circumstances but you would have an average idea of both the competencies as well as costs of different lawyers.

Any decent lawyer worth his salt will not divulge the cases he dealt with or dealing with.  There is a privacy clause that operates between the advocate  and client.  The calibered and decent advocate won't play to the tunes of his/her client for a few bucks, while hearing instructions from the client may advise him what he should do.  Coming to the queriest's question, there is no fixed fee for case and it varies from advocate to advocate and the amount you mentioned may be for full case in respect of some advocates and only for single appearance  for some other advocates.  That depends to which advocate you are approaching.  The good advocates will not yield to the unreasonable demands/requests of their clients.

I have been duped by these lawyers. One lawyer took Rs.10,000 initially and did not do any work. He has to extract the property documents. And he gave up. He does not even respond to my calls now after taking the money. What to do? Please suggest. 

@ Sandhya,

as per my knowledge you can't prove that he took such amount and gave up until and unless you have some proofs of giving money or paid such amount to a lawyer in order to deal with your case / issue. even though as said by the experts above the fees may vary.

might some prays will help you to get your issue solved... don't lose hopes...

Ms. Sandhya, It is the easiest thing in the world to inspect property papers and get certified copies of the same.  You go to sub-registrar's office related to the property which you want to inspect and move a single page simple application seeking permission to inspect the original file and affix court fee of about Rs.5/-.  Your application will be allowed and you will be offered a table and chair and the peon there will bring the original file.  You can inspect it and note down the important points and ask the concerned official to get photo copies of the documents and they will charge Rs.5/Rs.10 per page and supply the documents.   If you do not like to do it, but you go to sub-registrar's office and there find out advocate outside the office and pay him Rs.500/- for inspection and go along with him inside the office and see before your very eyes the inspection will be done and get the copies whatever you want. 

Most court cases are in public domain. So kindly clarify re privacy clause and how the Advocates ensure that.

While I wait for clarity as requested, here is an interesting link on someone's experience on  the subject of lawyer fees, competencies etc. with particular reference to marital cases......

 

https://mehnat.in/how_to_deal_with_lawyers.html

 

personally, I feel many lawyers are good - and also many are not so good - and some plainly do not deserve to be lawyers. There have been cases of fake lawyers roaming around in courts ! But everyone has to make a living. If you/ I are unfortunate enough to come across a bad lawyer, it is prudent to realize that and cut your losses at the earliest and move on.

An "average lawyer" is extremely difficult to find as most of them are much below average.  

Communication between lawyer and his client is a privilege communications under the law of the land. Secondly, it is a fact that there are half bake lawyer and full baked lawyer, just like the saying "a Judge who has not err is yet to be born".. Lastly the sky is the limit for lawyer;s fees.

Thanks to Sh. Hardeep, I had the benefit of going through the riveting article he referred to, and undoubtedly it is spicy.  It is written only in view point of the litigant and missing from the point of advocate except in one or two areas, i.e., collecting the fee etc.  I do not subscribe that some of it written there, but it is worth for a litigant to go through it before engaging an advocate.  Coming to the privilege issue, the judgments in public domain are not at the volition of the advocates, but the courts / law journals send judgments online which invariably bear the names of the advocates representing the parties and it cannot be construed as advertisement of those advocates.  Anyhow, these judgements are of either H.C. or S.C. and the advocates soliciting the cases or to impress their prospective clients may quote them without causing injury to the doctrine of "privilege".  But, if the matter boils down to trial court, most of the trial court advocates have not got such benefit of display of their names with the judgments online, because those judgments will never be in public domain. Especially matrimonial judgments at district level or family court judgments are not displayed on the public fora. If the trial court advocates embark upon to show off their prospective clients about their success stories, there is only one deplorable and pitiable option available  - to fish out their own cases from their record room.  I do not think a good advocate will take such an effort and instead of that he opts to talk with his prospective client 10 to 15 minutes and during that talk if the client gets impressed, it is o.k. otherwise he will leave the client instead of displaying his old record.  Any how, this is my personal perspective.  Other advocates and the clients in general may have their own perceptions and I respect them.   

The point of Adv. Chandrasekhar is well taken. However there should be no necessity to dig into records. If I as Advocate have handled a case well, I'd simply take the permission of the client and give the reference when appropriate. Unless I don't have a happy client to talk about anyways. Of course it is every one's own perspective . What I was curious about was if there is a legal prohibition on such references.

Thanks for responding Mr.Chandrasekhar. As I mentioned, this lawyer demanded Rs.15k to get the documents extracted from registrar office. I gave 10k. After some days, he gave me all kinds of excuses that officer is transfered, etc. He started telling it will take time. When I asked him what next, he would avoid my calls. One day, he said he will give up and return my amount. He was refered by one of my friend. After lot of fuss, he sent 3k. I asked him the remaining amount. He mentioned that he worked for the case and that was his fees. Infact, there were no results from his work. But he took me once on the visit to the property. So, it included all charges of total 7k. I am duped. I have no proof for giving 10k. He was scared of his reputation and hence paid me only 3k. Please suggest, how to take this forward

@ms sandhya 1) what exactly are these documents you needed extracted? 2) have you since managed to get them on your own by following the process advised by Shri Chandrashekhar? 3) have you any evidence of what you claim - phone calls maybe ?

THERE ARE NO HARD AND FAST RULES  FOR A LAWYER FEE BECAUSE IT IS A PRIVATE  MATTER BETWEEN LAWYER AND CLIENT.IN MOST OF THE CASES THERE WILL NOT BE ANY PROOF FOR THE PAYMENT.

REGARDING THE AMOUNT FOR HANDLING ENTIRE MATTER A GOOD LAWYER MAY DEMAND FROM  30000 TO  100000.  IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE REPUTATION AND DEMAND OF THE LAWYER.

MORE THAN FEE CHARACTER OF THE LAWYER IS MORE IMPORTANT AND IT MAY BE  A LITTLE DIFFICULT THING TO  KNOW THE CHARACTER.