Difference between revisions of "You and Your Lawyer"

Both you and your lawyer have the right to have the lawyer's bills reviewed for fairness under the ''[http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/page.cfm?cid=694&t=Legal-Profession-Act-Contents Legal Profession Act]'' to fix a final amount owing. The fee review is performed by a Registrar or Master of the Supreme Court at a formal hearing in court.

At this hearing, the Registrar <span class="noglossary">will</span> be presented with the lawyer's bills to you, and any other supporting documents, such as a time diary, a statement of the lawyer's charges to your bill by the amount of time spent on each task on a day-by-day basis, and the documents and correspondence that were generated over the course of the lawyer's services to you. Your lawyer <span class="noglossary">will</span> attempt to satisfy the Registrar that his or her fees were reasonable and that the amounts billed for disbursements were reasonable. The Registrar <span class="noglossary">will</span> look at the bills and apply a number of considerations in arriving at his or her decision, including:

After hearing all the evidence, the Registrar <span class="noglossary">will</span> issue a ''Certificate of Fees'' which sets out the amount of fees and disbursements that the Registrar has approved as reasonable. That becomes the amount you owe to your lawyer for his or her services, and, in some cases, the amount of the refund your lawyer owes you. Most importantly, the Certificate of Fees has the same standing as a court judgment and can be used as such to enforce the amount owing to the lawyer or the amount owed by the lawyer to you.