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ver the years as other lawyers have lost clients to our office, we have learned that the major complaints people have had with their previous lawyers were as follows: unreturned calls and inability to reach a lawyer; no progress is being made on the file; dissatisfaction with the fees being charged. ommon courtesy and good business sense dictate that calls be returned promptly. Nonetheless, our law firm is busy. Court obligations or meetings with clients may prevent us from taking your call. However, we pride ourselves on returning calls within a twenty-four hour period if possible. Often times calls are returned after hours to ensure this deadline is met. f no progress is being made on a file it is due to one of two things: procrastination or third party influences. Procrastination is inexcusable and is not tolerated. Should you at any time feel that there is an unexplained lack of progress on your file you should feel free to discuss it with the partners of the firm. Their door is always open to discuss any concerns you may have or to discuss how we might be better able to serve you. hird party influences which may delay progress on your file may be unavoidable. For example, the waiting period for a Court of Queen's Bench trial is anywhere from six months to a year. Nonetheless, we believe it is important that you be kept informed as to the progress being made on your file and for that reason send copies of all incoming and outgoing correspondence to our clients. In this manner you are kept abreast of everything we may be doing on your behalf . egal fees can be expensive. It does neither the firm nor you any good to embark on a course of action for which you can ill afford to pay. For this reason the costs of any legal course of action are discussed during the initial meeting with the lawyer handling your file. We provide a free half-hour initial consultation, by telephone or in person. For matters that you retain us to act on your behalf, we accept payment on accounts by cash, cheque, interac, Visa or MasterCard. If you require payment terms, these should be discussed with the lawyer handling your file. he manner of charging fees varies depends on the type of work being done. The most common form of billing is by hourly rate. The hourly rate of the lawyers in the firm varies according to their experience in a particular area of law and years at the bar. If you are being charged on an hourly rate the rate will be disclosed to you at the initial meeting. Furthermore, we will attempt to provide you with an estimate of the hours required and fees to be charged. ontingency fee arrangements arise where we agree to take a matter on for a percentage of any funds we recover for you. The Law Society Rules require that all contingency arrangements be in writing and the agreement will be reviewed with you in detail prior to its signing. lat fee arrangements: on occasion a flat fee for doing legal work may be quoted. The advantage of a flat fee arrangement is that you know exactly how much you will be required to spend and if the lawyer is required to spend more time on your file you are not required to pay for it. On the other hand, if the lawyer spends less time the account is not generally reduced. Occasionally reductions are given, depending on the circumstances. he size of our firm permits the individual lawyer to concentrate on preferred areas of practice, which in turn allows us to keep abreast of the developing law in the area. As a result, your matters may be referred to another lawyer in the firm but this will not be done without prior discussions with you.

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