All lawyers in British Columbia are members of the Law Society of British Columbia. Many are also members of the Canadian Bar Association and local bar associations. The Law Society's primary purpose is to govern and regulate lawyers in order to protect the public interest. As officers of the court and as members of the Law Society, lawyers are held to a high standard of conduct.

Your lawyer's primary job is to protect and advance your legal interests. At the same time, your lawyer must follow this high standard of conduct and act at all times in an ethical manner. One of the key aspects of your relationship with your lawyer is "lawyer-client privilege." Privilege means that whatever you tell your lawyer remains between the two of you; without your express instructions, your lawyer is not allowed to reveal your communications with him or her. This privilege belongs to you, not your lawyer.

All this having been said, your lawyer is a lot like a plumber: if you tell your plumber to install your sink, he or she installs your sink. On the other hand, if you tell your plumber to hook the hot water pipe up to the ice-making machine intake, you'd expect your plumber to give you some common sense advice about why that might be a bad idea. Your lawyer is also like a champion: your lawyer is your sword and shield, protecting you from some of the more unpleasant and adversarial aspects of litigation while fearlessly pursuing your claim.

Both of these analogies are rather cheesy but apt. You should expect your lawyer to take the heat for you and fearlessly advance your claim. While you should expect your lawyer to do just what you tell him or her to do, you should also expect your lawyer to give you good advice if your instructions are not in your best interests. You should especially expect your lawyer to tell you if what you want to do will be harmful to your case.

Some lawyers are also mediators. Lawyers who are accredited family law mediators have special, additional training in mediation. Family law mediators do not act for you or your partner as a lawyer in the usual solicitor-client relationship; they are providing mediation services to the both of you, rather than advocacy services for just one of you. Lawyers who act as mediators are neither party's champion.

The website of the Law Society of British Columbia is an extremely helpful resource for people who have hired a lawyer or people who are thinking of retaining a lawyer. It provides a lot of information about the lawyer-client relationship and about lawyers' ethical duties to their clients.

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Sometimes the best way to find a lawyer is the same way you find a family doctor or locate a school for your children: by word of mouth. Ask your friends, family and co-workers if they've ever used a family lawyer, and, if so, how they liked that person. Did the lawyer return telephone calls promptly? Did the lawyer keep them up to speed on the progress of their file? Was the lawyer's bill reasonable? Did they feel comfortable with their lawyer? You can also ask your doctor, your accountant or your dentist if they can refer you to someone.

The Lawyer Referral Service is another way to find a lawyer. This service keeps a roster of subscribing lawyers in your area, a list of the areas of law they practice in and a list of the languages they speak. Call 604-687-3221 in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland or, elsewhere in British Columbia, call 1-800-663-1919. Links to the websites of a number of family law lawyers and law firms located across British Columbia are provided in the section Resources & Links.

Yet another way to find a lawyer is by contacting the Legal Services Society (LSS). 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 catastophic reduction of LSS's funding, legal aid will generally only be available for people in situations of family violence or where the abduction of children is at risk. More details on LSS's criteria for aid can be found in the section Resources & Links. Click here for LSS's contact information.

If none of this works out try finding a lawyer through the Yellow Pages or the internet, but only as a last resort. Typing "vancouver family lawyer" or "best divorce lawyer" 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 happy and upbeat things they say about themselves on their websites. The same thing applies to picking a lawyer through 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 practice family law along with other areas of the law. If a lawyer advertises in the Yellow Pages or online, their ad will usually say exactly what area or areas of law he or she practices in. You may wish to pay special attention to lawyers who tend to spend all or most of their time on family law matters.

A list of legal directories is available in the section Resources & Links. The directories will let you search for a lawyer by region and type of legal problem.

The First Interview

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; note that the Lawyer Referral Service has an agreement with the lawyers on its list that they will charge a special fixed fee for a half-hour initial interview. Use this first meeting as an opportunity to assess how you feel about each lawyer and how you relate to them; you needn't hire the first lawyer you meet, you are entitled to shop around before you choose the lawyer who is right for you.

Use your first interview with each lawyer to get that lawyer's take on your problem. Tell him or her about your problem concisely, and let the lawyer ask questions which pull out the details of your problem. Do not be shy about asking what their hourly rate is, how they will bill you, and what sort of disbursements (a lawyer's out-of-pocket costs 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.

(If you're meeting with a lawyer who is a qualified family law mediator, and you're thinking of hiring him or her to act as a mediator, you don't want to give the lawyer too many details about your situation. Family law mediators must be neutral and impartial and must appear to be neutral and impartial. Too much information may strip the lawyer of the appearance of neutrality and impartiality to the point where he or she cannot mediate your dispute.)

Hiring your Lawyer

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 pay as a deposit for your lawyer's services.

Above all, never hesitate to express to your lawyer any concerns you might have about his or her bills or services.

(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.)

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You must 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 this, you must 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 expecations are regarding payment of each account.

Your Retainer

In British Columbia, family law lawyers cannot work on a "contingency" basis, which is how some other lawyers, like personal injury lawyers, often get paid. A family law lawyer 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 lawyers will 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 and is still your money. A retainer works a bit like a debit card: your lawyer will "withdraw" from the retainer money each time he or she bills you. After a couple of bills or more have been paid from the retainer money, the retainer may be depleted. At that point your lawyer may ask you for another retainer, your lawyer may simply bill you directly each month. On the other hand, if your problem is resolved unusually quickly or if you fire your lawyer, you will be entitled to a refund of whatever of the retainer money 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. Most lawyers will bill you by the hour, although some will agree to a flat rate. Note that lawyers' fees are subject to GST and PST. Mediators' fees are subject only to GST.

(In the December 2005 case of Christie v. British Columbia, our Court of Appeal held that PST should not be charged on lawyers' fees relating to litigation. The provincial government has appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. Pending the hearing of the appeal, the Law Society of British Columbia has instructed lawyers to collect the PST but hold it in trust. If the government loses the appeal, this money will be returned to the clients; if the government wins, this money will be paid to the government.)

Reviewing Your Lawyer's Bill

Both you and your lawyer have the right to have the lawyer's bills reviewed for fairness under the Legal Profession Act to fix a final amount owing. This assessment is called "taxing" a lawyer's bill. The assessment is performed by a Registrar or Master at a hearing called a "taxation hearing." At the end of the hearing, the Registrar will issue a Certificate of Fees.

At a taxation hearing, the Registrar is presented with the lawyer's bills to you, and any other supporting documents, like 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 produced during the litigation. Your lawyer will attempt to satisfy the Registrar that his or her charges were reasonable and that the amounts billed for disbursements were reasonable. The Registrar looks at the bill and applies a number of considerations in arriving at his or her decision, including:

1. the value and importance of the results obtained;
2. the complexity or novelty of the issues;
3. whether the time spent was reasonable; and,
4. whether your lawyer's hourly rate was reasonable.

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.

Tax Deductions for Legal Fees

The portion of a lawyer's bill attributable to obtaining or enforcing an order for child support or spousal support is tax deductible. The cost of defending a claim for spousal support is not a tax deduction.

To claim this deduction, the lawyer must write a letter to the Canada Revenue Agency setting out what portion of his or her fees were attributable to advancing a spousal or child support claim. If you intend to ask your lawyer for a letter like this, you must tell your lawyer as soon as possible, preferably the moment the lawyer takes your case. The lawyer will be required to keep a log of his or her time spent on the claim, and many lawyers will be unable to winnow out the parts of their bills dedicated to support that were recorded long ago. Worse, the cost of the time your lawyer spends reviewing your file and his or her bills to figure out what time was spend on the support issue after the fact may be more than the deduction you will get.

Sample Documents

The links below will open a sample Appointment and Certificate of Fees in a new window. You will require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files, a free program available for download at Adobe's website.

In this sample, our fictitious Client, Jane Doe, is taxing the bills of her fictitious Solicitors, Smith, Smith & Smith.

• Form 24: Appointment
• Form 68A: Certificate of Fees

These sample documents are just that: samples. While they represent a more or less accurate picture of how Jane Doe might fill out her forms, they may not be applicable to your situation. Use them as a reference only together with the official court form.

Areas where the court form offers a choice or where you must supply information are indicated in burgundy text.

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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 any problem you might be experiencing.

The Law Society exists primarily for the protection of the public. It is not the lawyer's ally. You have the right to bring a complaint to the Law Society about a lawyers' actions or lack of action. You can contact the Law Society at:

The Law Society of British Columbia
845 Cambie Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6B 4Z9

Telephone 604-669-2533
Facsimile 604-669-5232
Outside the Lower Mainland, telephone 1-800-903-5300

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Either you or your lawyer can end the solicitor-client relationship; you can fire your lawyer and your lawyer can fire you. From a lawyer's point of view, neither event occurs particularly often, but it does happen.

Firing your Lawyer

Clients usually want to fire their lawyers when they're displeased 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 bad news.

First, you'll have to pay your outstanding account, if there is one. If you disagree with the amount charged, you can apply to the court to have your lawyer's bill "taxed," which is described in more detail above. On the other hand, if there's still money in your retainer, that's your money and you can ask to have it sent back to you.

Then there's the matter of your file. If your litigation 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. Under certain circumstances, your lawyer will 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.

When your Lawyer fires You

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

1. an unpaid account and a low likelihood that the account will get paid;
2. the client refuses to give reasonable instructions or follow the lawyer's advice; or,
3. the trust aspect of the solicitor-client relationship has broken down.

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. Most lawyers will also recommend other lawyers who you may wish to retain.

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 tax his or her own bill to get a judgment about the amount owing; that's something either of you can do.

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