By: Clayton Swan
PDF Version: The Purposes and Limits to a Client’s Right to A Review of Lawyer’s Accounts
Case Commented On: Eryn B Logie Family Law v West, 2017 ABQB 339 (Logie QB); West v Logie Family Law, 2018 ABCA 255 (Logie CA).
Recently, the Alberta Court of Appeal addressed an important issue in lawyer-client relations: the right and ability of a client to submit their lawyer’s bill for review. The technical term for this process is ‘taxation.’ The chain of cases that I will discuss begins with a highly contested family law file and a retainer that lasted 3 years. The lawyer-client relationship ended with the client having paid 98.5% of his bill. The client applied to a Master, and received, an order allowing an extension on the time limit for reviewing a lawyer’s bill without being required to provide notice to his lawyer or having to justify his request. The lawyer appealed the order and was ultimately successful in the Court of Appeal. This blog post will focus on the reasons of the Court of Appeal and provide some commentary on what this judgment could mean for both clients and lawyers in the future.