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FLAT RATE PRICE LIST

Consultations

Prior to determining what options are available to you in order to move your family law issue forward, it is often necessary to speak with one of our lawyers to get direction, information and advice.

Standard Booking $199

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Emergency Request $499

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"off the shelf" family law services price list

We have worked very hard to design our services as through they were products on a shelf in order to best enable us to fix our flat rates to provide our clients with more accuracy and certainty of how much our services will cost when they begin their legal journey. (Prices starting at - tax not included)

Whether you require an agreement prior to entering into a spousal relationship, during a spousal relationship or following separation, we can assist you in drafting, negotiating, and structuring your agreement in a manner that not only resolves your legal issues but provides a governing guideline for parenting and other responsibilities of each party to the agreement such that it provides clarity and certainty and is enforceable in the event of non-compliance. “Lite” generally means there are only a couple of issues such as custody, parenting and support or straightforward division of property.

Whether you require an agreement prior to entering into a spousal relationship, during a spousal relationship or following separation, we can assist you in drafting, negotiating, and structuring your agreement in a manner that not only resolves your legal issues but provides a governing guideline for parenting and other responsibilities of each party to the agreement such that it provides clarity and certainty and is enforceable in the event of non-compliance. These typically involve a plethora of legal issues.

These typically require significant legal or financial planning to take advantage of any corporate structuring or tax considerations in consultation with either your existing financial or tax planner or one of our partnering professionals. Whether you require an agreement prior to entering into a spousal relationship, during a spousal relationship or following separation, we can assist you in drafting, negotiating, and structuring your agreement in a manner that not only resolves your legal issues but provides a governing guideline for parenting and other responsibilities of each party to the agreement such that it provides clarity and certainty and is enforceable in the event of non-compliance. These typically involve a plethora of legal issues.

If you have a legal agreement and only require review and advice relating to the same, we can ensure you have been informed about your rights and obligations of any Interspousal Agreement as required under The Family Property Act.

Meeting with the other party and their lawyer can be an effective way in getting together to find amicable solutions to resolving your family law matter. Depending on the complexity of issues involved and the reasonableness of the opposing party, four-way meetings can be highly productive in resolving some or all of the outstanding issues

Commencing a court action requires the issuance of a petition and filing a financial statement (where there are support issues) and a property statement (where there are property issues). This starts the litigation process and is a required step to completing a divorce or obtaining a court order. The Petition signals to the opposing party what specific relief you are claiming. This includes court fees of $200 (no divorce) to $300 (including divorce).

Responding to a Petition you have been served with involves filing a formal response in the form of an Answer and filing a financial statement (where there are support issues) and a property statement (where there are property issues). If you have relief you wish to deal with that was not plead in the Petition, you will also need to file a Counter-Petition. The Answer and Counter-Petition responds to the relief sought by the other party while signalling what other relief you are claiming. This includes court fees of $100 (no divorce) to $200 (including divorce).

Disclosure of documents and information is crucial to determining fair and appropriate settlement of issues involving support and property division. There are a variety of methods that can be explored to ensure you have received the information required to satisfy you the resolution of your matter is fair. These include service and filing of a Notice to Disclose, service and filing of a Notice to Reply to Written Questions, conducting Oral Questioning, application to enforce compliance with deadlines, etc.

You may also have disclosure requirements you need to provide such as responding to a Notice to Disclose, responding to a Notice to Reply to Written Questions, subjecting yourself to Oral Questioning, or responding to an application to enforce compliance with deadlines, etc.

From time to time, your legal issues cannot wait to be resolved in the ordinary course and require more immediate court intervention. This could involve custody or access issues, child or spousal support issues, or property matters (i.e. exclusive possession of the family home, preservation order restraining the sale or disposal of family property, or an interim distribution, etc.) Although interim applications are generally suggested to be a last-resort mechanism to dealing with your family law issues, occasionally they are necessary where the opposing party refuses to take a reasonable position or resists your attempts to move forward in a more efficient manner. This includes the $20 to $50 in court fees that may be incurred. These typically involve a plethora of legal issues.

From time to time, your legal issues cannot wait to be resolved in the ordinary course and require more immediate court intervention. This could involve custody or access issues, child or spousal support issues, or property matters (i.e. exclusive possession of the family home, preservation order restraining the sale or disposal of family property, or an interim distribution, etc.) Although interim applications are generally suggested to be a last-resort mechanism to dealing with your family law issues, occasionally they are necessary where the opposing party refuses to take a reasonable position or resists your attempts to move forward in a more efficient manner. This includes the $20 to $50 in court fees that may be incurred. These typically involve a plethora of legal issues. In the event you are responding to an interim application, the cost will be slightly less.

A pretrial management conference is a mandatory procedure on the litigation path in the event you are not able to otherwise resolve matters by agreement. We start by scheduling the pretrial by teleconference. Once it is scheduled (usually 4-6 months after the teleconference), both parties are required to file pretrial briefs of law outlining their positions 10 days before the pretrial. The process involves both parties coming together in the presence of a judge who assist the parties in facilitating meaningful settlement discussion. They are highly effective in reaching a final resolution with a high probability of settlement by way of Minutes of Settlement or Consent Judgment. This includes the $75 court fees.

The last stage in the litigation process is trial. Some statistics suggest less than 2% of family law files end up going to trial and it is considered the absolute last resort to settling family law issues. There is a considerable amount of preparation involved in trials including organization of documents to be used as exhibits, strategizing preparing questions for witnesses, reviewing all pleadings and court documents, etc.

It is estimated that for every day of trial, there are 3-4 days of preparation. This preparation occurs at various phases in the days, weeks and months before trial. For this reason, fees are typically charged for one day of trial even if the matter settles within two months before the start of the trial, for two days of trial even if the matter settles within two weeks of trial, for three days of trial even if the matter settles within one day of trial and for the entirety of the scheduled days of trial whether they are utilized or not. It is always advisable to avoid trial if at all possible, not just because of the high financial cost, but also due to the high emotional cost given the stress of the process.

Occasionally, litigants end up with a decision they do not agree with and wish to challenge the court’s decision to a higher authority. The law is constantly evolving and the Court of Appeal’s decisions serve to advance those evolutions and provide valuable commentary and clarification to lower courts, lawyers and litigants.

Because the complexity of an appeal often depends on the complexity of the lower court’s decision, there are few metrics that can assist us in determining an appropriate fee. Accordingly, our general policy is to round up to the nearest ten pages to calculate the fee estimate. This includes court filing fees but not the cost of obtaining any transcripts.

Monthly Subscriptions

Some matters can be settled relatively simply through one or more exchanges of correspondence. Our office strives to minimize back and forth communication and therefore costs incurred by our clients. We are usually able to achieve this by encouraging reasonable initial proposals and managing our clients’ expectations. Unfortunately, we cannot control the responses or positions of opposing parties and therefore, do not recommend expending significant costs with correspondence between lawyers or the other party. Fees for negotiation are based on the number of exchanges in a given month
  • Includes 4 “Correspondence Credits” per month – redeemable for emails, letters, phone calls or the like, per each month of the subscription. These include correspondence with your lawyer, opposing party, the Court of Queen’s Bench, or any third party that is involved in your family law matter starting immediately upon receipt of this signed Engagement Agreement.
  • Usage allotment will refresh monthly, balances will not carry forward and will expire at the end of each month and additional credit can be purchased for $62.50 each 
  • You have chosen our subscription model of payment, meaning that you will not be billed on an hourly basis nor receive a specific product offered by our office but general advice and routine communications through our office as we navigate through your legal matter. In the event the level of involvement exceeds the 4 correspondences, during any given month or another product or legal service is required, your lawyer will discuss additional fees or expenses before you receive any charges. 
  • You will be billed $250 at the beginning of each month for your monthly subscription.  
  • If advance payment for your subscription is made billing will be the total amount set out in paragraph 3 divided by the total number of subscription months, in equal proportion with any remainder or remaining amount to be billed out in the final month.
Some matters can be settled relatively simply through one or more exchanges of correspondence. Our office strives to minimize back and forth communication and therefore costs incurred by our clients. We are usually able to achieve this by encouraging reasonable initial proposals and managing our clients’ expectations. Unfortunately, we cannot control the responses or positions of opposing parties and therefore, do not recommend expending significant costs with correspondence between lawyers or the other party. Fees for negotiation are based on the number of exchanges in a given month
  • Includes 10 “Correspondence Credits” per month – redeemable for emails, letters, phone calls or the like, per each month of the subscription. These include correspondence with your lawyer, opposing party, the Court of Queen’s Bench, or any third party that is involved in your family law matter starting immediately upon receipt of this signed Engagement Agreement.
  • Usage allotment will refresh monthly, balances will not carry forward and will expire at the end of each month and additional credit can be purchased for $50.00 each 
  • You have chosen our subscription model of payment, meaning that you will not be billed on an hourly basis nor receive a specific product offered by our office but general advice and routine communications through our office as we navigate through your legal matter. In the event the level of involvement exceeds the 4 correspondences, during any given month or another product or legal service is required, your lawyer will discuss additional fees or expenses before you receive any charges. 
  • You will be billed $500 at the beginning of each month for your monthly subscription.  
  • If advance payment for your subscription is made billing will be the total amount set out in paragraph 3 divided by the total number of subscription months, in equal proportion with any remainder or remaining amount to be billed out in the final month.

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Flat rate booking
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Flat Rate vs Hourly

At Evolve Family Law we have completely eliminated the hourly rate in favour of flat or fixed fee billing. This has involved a shifting of the mindset from our lawyers in that our philosophy is we are not so much selling our time but rather our advice and legal services. Once we become familiar with your situation, our experienced lawyers are able to assess your circumstances (I.e. level of complexity, estimate of resources or costs required, prediction of time involved, etc.) to fix a flat rate for a given task or service.

Unbundling legal services, where a lawyer provides legal services for part of a client’s legal matter, allows clients to access more affordable legal services.
It has the potential to remove barriers to access to justice for people who cannot afford a lawyer’s retainer, but need some legal help. Unbundling allows clients and lawyers to decide which tasks are performed by the client and which are performed by the lawyer. Unbundled legal services are especially helpful to self-represented litigants, who often are not self-represented by choice, but are unable to afford to retain legal counsel. It remains very difficult for self-represented litigants to find a lawyer who offers unbundled services.” – Law Society of BC

We offer unbundled services but not in the traditional meaning of the phrase. Although our unbundling is intended to add to the value and affordability of the services we provide, unbundling is not intended to assist our clients with representing themselves (although they are certainly able to do so along the way). Instead, it is intended as a means to fix our flat rates (as oppose to charging hourly fees) for each step along the way increasing the predictability of our clients’ legal costs and permitting them an opportunity to thoroughly consider the costs and risk-factors of each step they take on their legal journey before they actually take that step.

Typically, we suggest scheduling a telephone call with one of our lawyers. Prior to the call, you will be asked to provide some background information to assist the lawyer when he calls.

During the call, your immediate questions and concerns will be addressed and general advice as it pertains to your situation will be provided. The lawyer will then present a number of options available to you such that your first lengthy and meaningful meeting with the lawyer will occur with the matter already moving forward and making progress.

Of course, for more complicated matters or where a prospective clients desires a greater degree of attention before deciding how to proceed, 45-90 minute meetings are offered for a flat rate of $500.

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