Contingency Fee Arrangements: Comments on to Law Society of Upper Canada Advertising and Fee Arrangements Working Group.

With Jenna Wright, September 29, 2017.

This is a submission to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Contingency Fee Arrangements Consultation. In this document, we provide several recommendations in response to the Fifth Report of the Advertising & Fee Arrangements Issues Working Group. The premise behind these recommendations is that contingency fee regulation should seek to maximize consumer welfare. In other words, regulation should advance the interests of clients in (i) low price, (ii) high quality, (iii) fairness and predictability, and (iv) choice. This Submission considers seven issues:
1. Introduce Mandatory Retainer Contract 2
2. Avoid Excessively Low Fee Caps 3
3. Calculation of Contingency Fees 4
4. Regulate Disbursements 6
5. Firm Responsibility for Financial Risk Arising in Civil Litigation 7
6. Advertising 8
7. Moving from “Heavy Hand” to “Light Touch” Regulation 8

Can be found online at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3045503