A consultation is the first meeting with a legal professional to discuss your legal issue, determine what your options are and consider whether you will retain the lawyer's legal services to help with your matter. At the same time, it is also a meeting where the legal professional will assess your case and decide whether they can help you with your matter.
If you wish to hire a lawyer, you will be provided with a retainer agreement. This agreement outlines the essential terms of the lawyer-client relationship, and what you can expect in your representation.
This blog will address these issues as well as:
In Part 2, the blog will address the following questions:
What to look for when selecting a lawyer
How a lawyer can help
What to expect during a legal consultation
A consultation is not an occasion to resolve your legal issue. Although this is a common misconception, many legal issues are far too complex to be resolved during a single 30-minute meeting. The consultation is an opportunity to see how a lawyer or other legal professional can help you resolve your legal matter or assist you in navigating the legal system. To accomplish this, the lawyer or legal professional will need to know as much about you and your particular legal problem. A large part of the consultation is fact-gathering. Based on the facts that have been obtained during the consultation, the lawyer or legal professional can better assess all of the relevant facts and evidence, to ensure they do not miss any issues and can provide you with expert advice on how to move forward.
While a lot of context can be gleaned through your own explanation, documents are also helpful for the lawyer or legal professional to review. After gathering relevant facts and reviewing any relevant documents, they can assess your matter, the options available to you, and the likelihood of success for your matter. If there are key facts and documents missing, this may affect the lawyer or legal professional's ability to provide an accurate assessment. Similarly, if new facts and evidence arise at a later time, this may change their initial assessment.
The parts of a consultation can be broken down as follows:
Identification: It is important that you bring a government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license (or another form of photo ID) with you so that your identity can be confirmed. This is a requirement for all legal consultations in Ontario. It is a legal requirement that your lawyer has a copy of your ID for their records once you become a client.
Fact-gathering: Your explanation of your situation, introducing yourself and your family (if applicable), and outlining your goals and difficulties in achieving those goals. Depending on the type of application you intend to present, you should also be prepared to speak about your employment, education, or medical history so your lawyer or legal professional can get a sense of your background and experience. Questions may be asked of you by the lawyer or legal professional to get a clearer picture of your unique situation.
Evidence: The documents that you bring for review. This can include prior communication with the government and any documents you have already completed for your application.
Assessment: Based on all of the relevant facts and documents, the lawyer or legal professional can determine the strength of your case and any weaknesses.
Options and Information: If the lawyer or legal professional can help you with your matter, they will provide you with options on how you can move your matter forward to accomplish your goals. Keep in mind that other than in extraordinary situations, the lawyer or legal professional can never provide you with a 100% guarantee that your case will be successful. They will, however, be able to provide you with information as to what is likely to occur, how long you can expect steps to take, what facts may affect your situation, and
Costs: The fees that will be incurred by representing you. The lawyer or legal professional will explain the associated fees with the matter, such as what fee arrangement is available for you, as well as the disbursements (out-of-pocket fees) you will be responsible for. Generally, disbursements include (but are not limited to): Government fees, courier fees, and printing fees. Lawyer fees can either be on a flat rate, where you will be advised of the total cost for the work to be done upfront; or hourly, where you will be charged a certain amount per hour or part thereof.
How do lawyers get paid?
Lawyers are paid primarily for two things, their time and their legal advice. How much they charge for these two things varies greatly from from lawyer to another. The cost of a lawyer can also change based on location. For example, a lawyer in Toronto, Ontario can charge much more than one in London, Ontario. It can also vary based on the concentration or expertise of the lawyer or legal professional. Regardless of how a lawyer or legal professional determines the rate of compensation, there are three ways in which a lawyer or legal professional can charge fees: hourly, flat fee, or contingency.
Hourly: In this compensation method, the lawyer charges a certain rate per hour or fraction of an hour. If the lawyer or legal professional has to attend court or an administrative hearing on your behalf, the hourly rate could be higher than the regular hourly rate. Hourly rates can range from $100 per hour to upwards of $700 per hour depending on the lawyer. Phone calls (whether to, from, or about a client), text messages, emails, and Zoom calls can count as much as face-to-face meeting time. An hourly fee arrangement is typically done in situations where the lawyer or legal professional cannot estimate the amount of time it would take to work on the case presented to them. However, they can generally give an estimate of the total costs.
Flat Fee: In this compensation method, the lawyer or legal professional charges a set amount for the task required of them. This fee arrangement is typically used in a case where the client's task is deemed route or predictable, in both time required and complexity. The advantage to a flat fee arrangement is that you will know the total price for your requested task up front and it reduces the unpredictability of an hourly billing arrangement. Immigration, Power of Attorney documents, and Wills are examples of legal matters that can typically be a flat fee arrangement.
Contingency Fee: With this fee arrangement, a lawyer or legal professional only gets paid if they are successful with your case. The lawyer then gets paid a percentage of any monetary judgment or settlement. This type of fee arrangement is uniquely applicable to personal injury cases and is inapplicable to any other legal matters. For more information see the Law Society of Ontario's Contingency Fee guide.
Regardless of the Fee Arrangement, if you have any questions or the amount charged by your lawyer or legal professional, it is your right to discuss the bill with them. If, after discussing the problems with the final bill, you are not satisfied with the result, you can have the bill reviewed by the Assessment Office of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. You have one month from the day the bill was sent to you to apply to the Assessment Office to have it reviewed. There is a fee to begin this process and rules that must be followed to ensure that the bill is Assessed and a resolution found. However, if you have any issues with a bill sent to you from a Paralegal or Immigration Consultant, this is not settled by the Law Society of Ontario. If the bill has been sent to you by a paralegal, you can dispute it in Small Claims Court; if it was from an Immigration Consultant, consult the measures available by the Immigration Consultation Regulatory Board, the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.
What is a Retainer Agreement?
A retainer agreement is a signed written document between the client and the lawyer on how the lawyer will be paid. Retainer agreements are highly encouraged, and in some circumstances, legally required to prevent any down-the-road misunderstandings of how a lawyer is going to be paid. This signed written confirmation of the mutually agreed upon fee arrangement is to be distinguished from “being on retainer” in that a retainer agreement sets out how a lawyer is to be paid, whether by flat fee, hourly, on contingency, or being on retainer. It may also set out whether the lawyer requires an advance or upfront payment by the client. This is much like a deposit which the lawyer can draw from as the legal matter proceeds. Part or all of an advance, or upfront retainer fee, may be refundable depending on the client's and lawyer's agreement. There are also some legal restrictions placed on lawyers on how much of an advance, or upfront retainer fee, they can keep if the legal representation of a client prematurely ends.
Contact Us
If you are interested have questions about visiting or immigrating to Canada or need a legal consultation, I can help. Contact me at 1 (437) 747-8008, or email kristina@kvalaw.ca and I would be happy to assist.
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