Our Fees

Our team has several decades of knowledge in wills, trust and estate matters, which we apply to help you get the best results. Call or e-mail for a FREE consultation.

In estate litigation matters, there are a few different ways in which lawyers agree to be paid for their services.

The first way is to hire a lawyer on a Contingency Fee Agreement, which means that, if your claim is successful, the lawyer receives a percentage of your overall recovery from the estate at the end of the case. The advantage to the Contingency Fee Agreement is that you only pay the lawyer at the end of the case once your claim has settled and you receive a distribution from the estate. If you are unsuccessful, you do not pay any legal fees.

Many firms do not offer a Contingency Fee Agreement and expect you to pay their bills as they become due throughout the litigation. This unfortunately limits access to justice to individuals with significant financial resources. Our firm is one of the few estate firms that offers a Contingency Fee Agreement.

The second way to pay your lawyer is through an Hourly Fee Agreement. Most firms expect an upfront money retainer and to be paid as the services are incurred. Our firm is one of the few in the Province that do not require an upfront money retainer. Our firm also defers payment of our legal fees until you receive money from the estate.

What should you look for to ensure you are not over-charged for the work performed by your lawyer?

When you can find a law firm that is willing to offer a Contingency Fee Agreement, the law firm often will charge a set fee of 20% to 33% regardless of when the claim resolves.

Therefore, when a file settles relatively quickly, the legal fees paid will be significantly higher than if you were charged on an hourly basis.

To avoid this windfall situation for the law firm, we offer a sliding scale where our legal fees start as low as 5% and move up over time depending on when the file is resolved. We also adjust  the percentages charged based on the size of the estate and the difficulty of the file.