Can criminal cases be represented by risk?
Article 12 of the Measures for the Administration of Lawyers' Service Fees stipulates that risk agency fees are prohibited in criminal litigation cases, administrative litigation cases, state compensation cases and group litigation cases.
The general understanding of risk agency is to win the lawsuit and pay the lawyer's agency fee.
Risk agency refers to a special entrusted litigation agency between the entrusted agent and the parties. If the client does not pay the agency fee in advance, after the case is executed, the client will pay a certain proportion of the creditor's rights executed in place to the agent as a reward. If the case is lost or the execution fails, the agent will not get any return; If the creditor's rights are executed in place, the client will pay the agent in accordance with the agreed high proportion, which has certain risks for both parties, so it is called risk agency.
Article 11, Article 12 and Article 13, paragraph 2, of the Measures for the Administration of Lawyers' Service Fees respectively stipulate: "In handling civil cases involving property relations, if the client still asks for risk agency after learning the government guidance price, the law firm may implement risk agency fees, except for the following circumstances:
(1) Marriage and inheritance cases;
(2) Requesting social insurance benefits or minimum living security benefits;
(3) Requesting to pay alimony, alimony, alimony, pension, relief fund and compensation for work-related injuries;
(4) requesting payment of labor remuneration.
It is forbidden to carry out risk agency fees in criminal litigation cases, administrative litigation cases, state compensation cases and group litigation cases.
Note: To implement the risk agency fee, the law firm should sign a risk agency fee contract with the client, and stipulate the risk responsibility, charging method, charging amount or proportion that both parties should bear.
The implementation of risk agency should pay attention to the following three aspects.
First, we should follow the principles of openness, fairness, voluntary compensation, honesty and credibility.
That is, the law firm should first inform the client of the government-guided price for lawyers to charge agency fees, and only when the client still asks for risk agency fees after being informed of the government-guided price can the law firm implement risk agency fees, that is, whether to implement risk agency fees should be selected and decided by the client; Law firms can't hide things from their clients in order to get high returns.
2. Risk agency fees are not allowed for the following eight types of cases: 1, marriage inheritance cases; 2, request to give social insurance benefits or minimum living allowance; 3. Requesting to pay alimony, alimony, alimony, pension, relief fund and industrial injury compensation; 4. Requesting payment of labor remuneration; 5. Criminal cases; 6. Administrative litigation cases; 7. State compensation cases; 8. Class action cases.
Third, the execution risk agency fee shall not exceed a certain amount, that is, the maximum amount shall not be higher than 30% of the amount agreed in the charging contract. It is illegal to charge the risk agency fee beyond the standard. Article 40 of the Lawyers Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulates that lawyers shall not seek disputed rights and interests for their clients by providing legal services in their practice. Generally, the risk agency fee is charged according to the target amount finally realized by the parties through the agent's agency activities, which comes from other parties. Charging excessive risk agency fees is actually an act of "taking advantage of the convenience of providing legal services to seek the disputed rights and interests of the parties". In the above case, one of the reasons why a law firm's request for paying high agency fees was not fully supported was that it included alimony in the subject matter of risk agency fees, but in fact it was forbidden to implement risk agency fees for alimony.