Ontario’s legal regulator is asking Queen’s Park to change the law so that it can crack down on unscrupulous practices and make the contingency fee system — “you don’t pay unless we win” — more transparent and fair. The move came as the Law Society of Upper Canada voted Friday to draft new rules designed to stop “double dipping” — lawyers taking more money from injured clients than the law allows. “We’re in discussions with the attorney general,” said Malcolm Mercer, chair of the law society’s advertising and fee issues working group, which has been studying the contingency fee system for more than a year. Lawyers would also be obliged to inform clients of their right to have their legal bills reviewed by the provincial assessment office. The law society also wants lawyers to report the average contingency fees they charge — information that would then be published in aggregate “so that consumers can better understand what the market looks like as they choose someone to retain,” Mercer told law society benchers at Friday’s convocation meeting.

Source: thestar December 04, 2017 02:26 UTC