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In a cassation case related with contracts on the provision of legal services heard before an extended panel of judges of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, the Court held that a contract on the provision of legal services concluded between a lawyer and a natural person and based on typical, standard terms that have not been agreed individually is a consumer contract.

The Court noted that because of probably unfair terms of such a contract for the provision of legal services, control has to be undertaken by the court acting of its own motion.

The Supreme Court of Lithuania drew attention to the fact that in a contract on legal services based on standard terms, an advocate is obliged to provide information to the consumer in a clear and understandable way about the contract to be concluded and its terms in order to enable the consumer to make the relevant decision and sign the contract, thus confirming acceptability of the terms indicated therein.

Taking in regard the circumstances of the case heard that the contract on the provision of legal services indicates the scope of representation and the sums payable in an abstract way, the Court emphasised that the proportion between the legal services provided and their price has to be established. ‘The court ought to decide on both the correspondence of price to the scope of services and the conformity to the requirement of fairness’, is stated in the Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court of Lithuania remanded the case back to the court of appeal instance in order to determine the indicated circumstances.

The case was heard by the Supreme Court of Lithuania on the petition of an advocate who claimed 15,000 LTL remuneration for legal services provided to a natural person in accordance with a contract on the provision of legal services. The defendant filed a counterclaim requesting to declare those contracts on the provision of legal services voidable as entered due to fraud and requested protection of her consumer rights. The woman claimed that she had received the primary legal assistance from the advocate which was free of charge, and she understood the further services of the advocate in the proceedings as a part of this free legal assistance. There is a preliminary ruling issued by the EU Court of Justice in this case.

For more information see the website of the Supreme Court of Lithuania at http://www.lat.lt (Case No. 3K-7-149-706/2015). More on the preliminary ruling issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union see at: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=161389&pageIndex=0&doclang=LT&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=331426. Please indicate the source of information when citing or otherwise making use of this information.