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Thread: Legal Bonanza
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23-02-2019, 07:58 #1
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Posts
- 887
Legal Bonanza
After many years of buying guns without rejection I finally hit the dreaded "insufficient motivation" button and decided to look for a lawyer to take the appeal. Having never appealed before the decision to involve a professional made sense.
Approached a legal firm in the industry, very proactive company. They reacted immediately, unlike the DFO actually read my 10 page motivation, and were eager. Of course I asked for a ballpark figure on the cost which they provided as an average of similar cases coming to roughly 70% of the value of the firearm in question (OK, it is a 2nd hand gun so not super expensive). The contract letter for them to represent me was rather vague in that it had no explanation on the cost estimate nor the steps that they were going to take. It did waste some space to tell me though than every time the assistant of the clerk in the bottom cubicle on the right lifted a finger I would have to pay for that.
The representation letter made me a bit apprehensive, in my industry we would call it a blanko cheque. Because frankly they could charge me twice as much as quoted and I would not have any way of stopping that.
In my naivety I asked them to give me a breakdown on the steps that they were going to do, approximate costs and milestones were I can decide if I want to proceed or not. Note I did not ask them on what grounds they were going to appeal, so no trade secrets. Basically they same that you would ask a building contractor before giving them the go-ahead.
Well, that was the last of it. Legal firm never came back, never responded despite their prior eagerness. Gave them a week to respond before I went elsewhere. The DFO seems to have provided a whole industry with work so that they do not need to deal with pesky clients that ask questions about what services they will provide and how much they cost. And people go around saying the ANC doesn't create jobs.
Back to the original questions: is this normal behaviour for a legal firm. Are they so swamped with work that they can actually choose their clients.
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23-02-2019, 08:26 #2
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Centurion
- Posts
- 549
Re: Legal Bonanza
I don’t understand your post. Did your application get refused or was it the appeal for a refusal that also got denied?
If it’s just an appeal, why don’t you go through GOSA, Clark Attorneys or Martin Hood. There’s been dozens of posts in the forum about how efficient and clearly priced all of these legal teams are with a success story on an appeal posted almost daily.
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23-02-2019, 10:11 #3
- Join Date
- Apr 2014
- Location
- Western Cape, Cape Town
- Age
- 41
- Posts
- 2,476
Re: Legal Bonanza
If you are a member of GOSA silver level (R50pm) or higher they give you access to the legal at 50% discount rate. IIRC I've seen recently I think it is a flat fee of R1500.
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23-02-2019, 15:10 #4
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Posts
- 887
Re: Legal Bonanza
I am aware of all three that you mentioned, I just found the behaviour of the lawyers interesting to say the least.
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23-02-2019, 19:54 #5
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Centurion
- Posts
- 549
Re: Legal Bonanza
Agreed and your story sounds fishy, definitely not cool having to commit to a contract that would leave you open for uncontrolled costs. But that’s why I would never have even considered using anyone else than the three mentioned. I’m sure there’s many other great lawyers and firms out there that can assist.
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