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Legal aid lawyers say their low rate of pay is leading to an exodus and 'huge injustices'
Main Post: Legal aid lawyers say their low rate of pay is leading to an exodus and 'huge injustices'
Top Comment: The propaganda effort over the last 20+ years encouraging people to think of the country purely in terms of "what's in it for me" means that legal aid exemplifies everything that's wrong with this country. Taxes paid by the deserving rich being used to fund the provision of expensive services to the undeserving poor? Or you mad, man? There's also a strong ethos of "everyone is entitled to the best justice they can afford", exemplified by the current proposal to make defamation law even more lopsided in favour of the rich and powerful (especially politicians, who can use crown lawyers) However poorly funded legal aid is there will always be *someone* poor using it to access the legal system. So whatever cut is made the people making the cuts can always point to it working somewhere. And thus a 5% cut every year....
Can my lawyer (after being retained) change their hourly rate and bill me with the latter?
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Hired a lawyer at x-amount.
She raised her rates, I was unaware of this, 2 months after being retained. Now reviewing my final bill (the only bill I've seen) and she's billing me at her increased +130.00/hr rate for all but the initial 2 months.
Also I've heard their are limits that Junior/Associates may bill in Ontario? Can anyone offer any insight on that?
Thanks in advance,
Edit: I really didn't expect much help on this one, so thanks to all those that responded. I will have an assessment officer review the bill, with an emphasis on I never received any notice that the increases had taken place.
Top Comment: Does your retainer agreement say anything about how rates will increase?
Lawyers making a median hourly earning of $55. Is that accurate?
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By browsing the Government of Canada's Labour Market Information, I saw that the median earning of lawyers is $55-60/hour. That seems a bit low considering that your typical lawyer will charge $250-350/hour. For that reason, I was wondering if that information is reflective of the reality on the ground.
Top Comment: Legal salaries vary wildly, they also tend to increase with years of experience. The top earners skew the average salary to more than it is. They also vary a ton depending on the type of field and province. Also, there's a decent of amount of time that is not billable, some are better at billables than others. Furthermore, your hourly salary is usually like 20-40% of what is actually charged. And lastly, there's a shit ton of saturation in lawyers.
What is your billed hourly rate?
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Could people share how much they bill per hour whereish they're located, and how many years of experience they have? There's just not a lot of information out there and what there is seems really out of date.
I have 5 years of experience and my firm bills me at $265/hr. Rurualish area but moderate cost of living. My supervising attorney bills at $350 with 15 years of experience. We usually start new attorneys at $225.
Top Comment: $850, 7 year senior associate doing employment class actions in CA. Frankly I think it's way too high. We aren't actually billing clients, we just use it as a cross check for showing that the third of the recovery we are asking for is appropriate. Lots of judges seem to get offended by it though and say we should use a lower rate, although enough have agreed to it that it seems supportable.
BLS predicts 32k new lawyer jobs by 2029. U.S. law schools graduate that many every year. LOL.
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https://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm
Top Comment: Yeah but how many jobs are opening because lawyers be dying?
What is a reasonable (hourly) rate for a real estate lawyer ...
Main Post: What is a reasonable (hourly) rate for a real estate lawyer ...