Eliad Shraga, the chairman of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, came under fire on Monday for charging exorbitant fees to a woman who said she is struggling with financial hardship.
The Movement for Quality Government is a prominent non-profit that opposes corruption and what it views as government overreach and ethical lapses. It is one of the leading organizations fighting the Netanyahu coalition’s judicial overhaul, and Shraga is considered one of Israel’s most prominent lawyers.
Shraga charged a woman NIS 1.5 million ($395,000) for his role in settling the estate of the woman’s brother, who had been handicapped during his military service.
Shraga has known the woman for years, and represented her brother, and several of his friends, in a case involving the Defense Ministry, Channel 12 reported. The woman was not identified by name in reports about the dispute.
When the woman’s brother, who had no children, died, he left all of his property to his sister, who had cared for him. The man’s nephews approached the court handling the case and demanded half of the estate, however.
Shraga represented the woman in her case against the nephews, in which she secured NIS 4.2 million ($1.1 million). Shraga demanded a fee of over NIS 1.5 million, surprising his client, Channel 12 reported.
“I didn’t understand what the bonus was,” the woman said. “I didn’t understand that he gets more than just for the hours worked and 20%.”
The woman consulted another lawyer, Osnat Harkavy-Levy, who said that the woman had won 65% of the inheritance, but was already guaranteed 50%, so Shraga only secured her an additional 15%.
“He basically took a bigger bite out of it than what he brought her,” Harkavy-Levy said, according to Channel 12.
The woman said she told Shraga, “You could buy a house with that money.”
“He told me, ‘I went out of my way for you and represented you.’ I thought about it. Me and him are getting almost the same amount. It doesn’t make sense,” she said.
The woman and Shraga went to court, which sided with the woman, saying Shraga’s demands had been “irregular.” Shraga ended up receiving NIS 600,000 ($158,000) out of the NIS 1.5 million he had asked for.
The woman said Shraga had been dismissive and insulting, and claimed that he thought he deserved her brother’s house, because he had won it for him in court.
“He told me, ‘You work at the market, you’re not at all a lawyer, you’re lacking IQ.’ His behavior was terrible and threatening,” the woman said.
Shraga also used legal mechanisms to try to prevent the case from being publicized, Hebrew media reports said.
Shraga told Channel 12 in response to the incident, “This is a client who received legal services and court representation from the firm in countless procedures and hundreds of hours of work, over six years, without paying a penny.”
“After we won a verdict that got her millions of shekels, she tried to avoid paying the fees she agreed to,” Shraga said. He also said the woman was not actually facing financial hardship and charged that the case was being reported as such due to political machinations, as the Movement for Quality Government opposes the coalition’s judicial overhaul legislation.
After reports about the case surfaced, the Bar Association said its ethics committee would investigate.