Director and Chief Judge Russell J. Wojtenko, Jr. has made two significant changes in New Jersey workers' compensation practice within the past 80 days.
On December 11, 2015, the director provided a memorandum regarding the awarding of counsel fees to a petitioner's attorney. Prior to Judge Wojtenko taking the leadership of the Division, former Director Peter Calderone instituted an appointed "Counsel Fee Review Committee" beginning in 2005. In 2005, the Committee made a recommendation to place a cap on counsel fees at $35,000. In order to receive a higher fee than that amount, an attorney would have to submit an "Affidavit of Services" to justify the bill.
In conjunction with the rising annual yearly charts, that attorney fee maximum fee figure increased over time until January 2015, when the maximum fee was set at $45,000.
In Director Wojtenko's recent Memorandum, he abolished the established recommendations and indicated that the statute, case law and applicable New Jersey Administrative Code sections allow for a 20 percent counsel fee without a cap. The judge who awards the fees now has discretion to award up to a full 20 percent fee, but must take into consideration all variables on a particular file including the amount of services rendered. That judge might also still require an Affidavit of Services to justify the request.
The directive indicates that this is to be utilized whenever counsel fees are awarded, so there appears to be no distinction between cases brought before the date of the Memorandum and those filed prospectively.
On January 11, 2016, after Governor Christie signed into law A-4438/S-3202, Director Wojtenko directed the increase of the award of the petitioner's evaluation expert reports to increase to $600 from $400. That change was to be implemented immediately. There is no delineation in the Memorandum to indicate whether that increase will affect every report from this day forward, or only those expert reports that come from exams that post-dated January 11, 2016.
Disclaimer: The contents of this post are for informational purposes only, are not legal advice and do not create and attorney-client relationship.