Difference between revisions of "Lawyers & The Law Society"

Lawyers who are parenting coordinators are trained as mediators and arbitrators, and have a great deal of training on top of that. The sort of services parenting coordinators provide are a blend of mediation and arbitration, with a bit of counselling thrown in. Parenting coordinators help parents deal with parenting disputes when they arise and, if an agreement cannot be reached through a process that's a lot like mediation, then the parenting coordinator will make a decision resolving the issue through a process that's a lot like arbitration. Lawyers who act as parenting coordinators are neither party's advocate. If they're anyone's advocate, they're the children's advocate.

Yet another way to find a lawyer is by contacting the Legal Services Society (LSS) for [http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/helpmap/service/1053 Legal Aid Intake Services]. LSS provides legal aid in British Columbia, and, if you meet their criteria, they will refer you to a lawyer and pay for the lawyer's services to boot. Be warned however, that since the provincial government's catastrophic reduction of funding to LSS in 2002, legal aid will generally only be available for people dealing with situations of family violence or where the abduction of children is a possibility. Go to [http://www.lss.bc.ca/legal_aid/howToApply.php LSS's website on how to apply for legal aid] for more information about their eligibility criteria.

If none of this works out, you can try finding a lawyer through the Yellow Pages or the internet, but only as a last resort. Typing <tt>vancouver family lawyer</tt> or <tt>best divorce lawyer</tt> into a search engine is a terrible way to find a lawyer: while you will get a ton of results, you won't know anything about those lawyers except for the things they say about themselves on their websites. The same thing applies to picking a lawyer through a Yellow Pages ad.

Remember that not all lawyers practice family law, of course, and this is something you may want to take into consideration. Some lawyers focus exclusively on family law, so that family law is the whole of their practice; others practise family law along with other areas of the law. If a lawyer advertises in the Yellow Pages or online, the lawyer's ad or website will usually say exactly what area or areas of law he or she practices. You may wish to pay special attention to lawyers who tend to spend all or most of their time on family law matters.

Once you've gathered the names of a few lawyers who sound promising, make an appointment to meet with each of them. Some lawyers will offer you some of their time for free or at a reduced rate for an initial interview, and the lawyers you meet through the Lawyer Referral Service will charge a special reduced fee for a half-hour initial interview. Most lawyers however will bill for initial interviews at their usual hourly rate.

Do not assume that the lawyer will not charge for his or her time unless the lawyer specifically advertises that he or she offers free initial consultations. Expect a bill for the lawyer's time!

Don't be shy about asking lawyers about their hourly rates, how they will bill you, and what sort of disbursements (a lawyer's out-of-pocket expenses for things like photocopying and filing fees) the lawyer will expect that you pay for. Ask what sort of retainer they will require, what their interest rate is on overdue accounts, and whether they will be charging you any additional fees based on their success or the complexity of your problem. Ask whether anyone else in his or her firm will be working on your file, whether you will be billed for their work, and maybe ask to meet them too.

Once you've picked a lawyer you like and have decided to hire him or her, your lawyer will require you to sign a retainer agreement and give him or her a deposit towards your first of couple bills. Hiring a lawyer is called "retaining" a lawyer. A "retainer agreement" is a contract between your lawyer and yourself which you each must sign, and which sets out the legal and financial aspects of your relationship to each other. Read the agreement carefully! If there are any terms you don't understand, be sure to ask your lawyer, and, likewise, if you object to any of the terms of the agreement, express your objection and ask how your concern might be addressed. A "retainer" is a sum of money you will likely be asked to give as a deposit against your lawyer's future services and fees.

(A family law mediator will ask you to sign an Agreement to Mediate rather than the usual retainer agreement. The Agreement to Mediate will set out the details of the mediator's rate and expectations about payment, and how each mediation session will be paid for. The same thing applies to family law arbitrators. Parenting coordinators will want you to sign a Parenting Coordination Agreement, and will usually ask for both a retainer and a fee deposit.)

You should discuss with your lawyer, at the very first meeting, exactly how the lawyer will bill you for his or her time and for the expenses the lawyer incurs in working on your file. Most lawyers will bring this up on their own, but if your lawyer happens to forget to talk about it, you should bring it up. Don't be shy. You will, at a minimum, want to know what the lawyer's hourly rate is and what the lawyer's expectations are regarding payment of each account.

Family law lawyers will usually expect to be paid some money up front, called a retainer. While some family law lawyers will agree to be paid from the proceeds of the sale of an asset following trial, most often they'll expect to be paid by an initial retainer followed by additional retainer payments or a monthly billing process.

The amount you pay as your retainer is held by your lawyer in trust. Your lawyer will withdraw money from the retainer each time he or she bills you. After a couple of bills or more have been paid from the retainer, the retainer may be exhausted. At that point your lawyer will usually ask you for another retainer, or your lawyer may simply bill you directly each month. On the other hand, if your problem is resolved more quickly than was expected or if you fire your lawyer, you will be entitled to a refund of however much of the retainer is left over.

The terms of how your lawyer will bill you will be set out in your retainer agreement. This is one of the reasons why it is essential that you read the agreement carefully before you sign it. Note that lawyers' fees are subject to PST and GST. Mediators' fees and parenting coordinators' fees are subject to just GST.

At this hearing, the Registrar will 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 will attempt to satisfy the Registrar that his or her fees were reasonable and that the amounts billed for disbursements were reasonable. The Registrar will look at the bills and apply a number of considerations in arriving at his or her decision, including:

You will, of course, have the opportunity to present your side of the case and dispute your lawyer's bill as you see fit.

After hearing all the evidence, the Registrar will issue a ''Certificate of Fees'' which sets out the amount of fees and disbursements which 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.

If you don't ask your lawyer about this at the beginning of his or her retainer, it may be impossible to winnow out the parts of the lawyer's bills that were dedicated to support issues, and the cost of the time your lawyer spends reviewing your file and his or her bills to figure this out may cost more than the deduction you will get.

If you are concerned about how your file is being handled or have a complaint about your lawyer, you should first of all discuss the matter with your lawyer. This may not always be appropriate, and you may wish to contact the Law Society before speaking with your lawyer. Most lawyers, however, are deeply concerned about the satisfaction of their clients, and will go out of their way to fix, or at least explain, any problem you might be experiencing.

Clients usually want to fire their lawyers when they're unhappy with the service they're receiving. You can fire your lawyer simply by sending him or her a letter to that effect or giving your lawyer a call, though you will no doubt want to phrase a bit more nicely than "I'm firing you." The lawyer-client relationship is a business relationship, and you can terminate this relationship any time you wish.

Of course, there will be some things left to deal with after you've given your lawyer the news.

Then there's the matter of your file. If your case is still on-going, you'll need to get your file. If you've hired another lawyer, your lawyer will normally just send it to your new counsel; if you haven't, you're entitled to ask that your lawyer send it straight to you. Of course, there may be a slight problem if you still owe money to your lawyer. If you still owe money, your lawyer is entitled to keep your file until his or her account is paid in full. In the right circumstances, your lawyer may agree to transfer your file to your new lawyer on the new lawyer's promise to make sure that the bill gets paid when the file concludes.

This really doesn't happen all that frequently. Most often, a lawyer will fire his or her client for one of the following reasons:

*an unpaid account and a low likelihood that the account will get paid,

If your lawyer fires you, he or she will normally do so in a letter detailing the reason why he or she can no longer act for you and highlighting any important dates that are upcoming in your case. Most lawyers will also recommend other lawyers you may wish to consider retaining in their place.

After you've been fired, the same concerns arise as if you'd fired your lawyer. The lawyer will be concerned about an outstanding account and you will want your file back, or at least transferred to a new lawyer. As far as your outstanding account is concerned, it's important to know that your lawyer can have his or her own bill reviewed under the ''Legal Profession Act'' to get a judgment about the amount owing; that's something both of you can do.