Singapore legislation
Regulation 10
Regulation 10
Legal aid granted after commencement of proceedings
Subregulation 1
Where, after proceedings have been instituted in any court, any party becomes an aided person in regard to those proceedings, the Director is only liable to pay so much of the costs of the proceedings as are incurred while a Grant of Aid is in force.
Subregulation 2
Any solicitor, who has acted in the proceedings on behalf of the aided person before the date of the issue of a Grant of Aid, and any solicitor, who has by law a lien on any documents necessary for the proceedings to which the Grant relates and who has delivered them up subject to his lien, may give notice of the fact to the Director.
Subregulation 3
Subject to this regulation, the Director must pay to the solicitor mentioned in paragraph (2) either of the following as the solicitor’s costs:
the costs payable to the solicitor by his own client under an order for assessment of such costs by the court under the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, R 5) or the Family Justice Rules 2014 (G.N. No. S 813/2014) or any Rules of Court or any Family Justice Rules, as the case may be;
where no order mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) has been made, such costs as decided by the Director.
Subregulation 4
The sum available to the Director to pay the solicitor’s costs (called in this regulation the available sum) must be calculated in accordance with the formula A − B − C where —
A is the total amount of damages recovered for the aided person in the proceedings and costs recovered by the aided person and paid to the Director under section 16(3) of the Act;
B is the total amount of costs applied in the first instance under section 16(6) of the Act, in and towards satisfaction of the fees, charges and sums mentioned in section 16(5)(b) and (c) of the Act; and
C is any sum remaining unpaid on account of the aided person’s contribution that may be deducted from any property recovered or preserved for the aided person under section 22A(3) of the Act.
Subregulation 5
If the available sum is less than the total of —
the amount of the solicitor’s costs; and
the aggregate amount of B and C mentioned in paragraph (4)(b) and (c) owing to the Director,the Director must divide the available sum in proportion to the respective amounts owing to the solicitor and the Director.