STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT LEGAL FEES

At Ellis Business Lawyers, we understand the importance to small and mid-sized businesses of the legal costs in relation to the amount at stake in a business dispute.

Because of the variable nature of legal proceedings, it is often impossible even for lawyers to accurately predict at the outset the legal resources that will be required to resolve your business issue. At Ellis Business Lawyers we are committed to addressing the question of legal fees, court costs, and disbursements in an up-front straightforward manner to help you assess the financial implications of a particular legal situation with greater certainty.

Alternatives to Traditional Hourly-Fee Billing:
In many cases, we provide alternatives to traditional hourly-fee billing. We accept cases on a contingency fee basis or a flat fee basis where appropriate. Alternatively, your legal fees may be calculated according to the time we spend working on your case based on an hourly rate that we will advise you of in advance.

Contingency Fees:
Contingency fee agreements allow people to enforce their legal rights, including collecting bad debts, without having to put up a significant amount of money to retain a lawyer at the outset of the process. * Also, whether we get paid, and how much, depends (or is "contingent") on the results achieved. Under this kind of fee arrangement if no money is recovered you will not have to pay any legal fees although you may need to pay disbursements, which are the standard out-of-pocket expenses that occur in the course of enforcing your legal rights through a court action. Many of our clients have benefited from this “win-win” approach.

If funds are recovered then you pay a percentage of that amount which will be set out in the contingency fee agreement that you sign with us. The percentage that you will be asked to pay us in exchange for Ellis Business Lawyers accepting payment for legal services contingent on winning your case depends on a number of variables including the nature of your claim, the complexity of the case, the chances of success, the size of the monetary claim, and the length of time it will take to process your claim and recover the funds.

For more information on whether your case is appropriate for a contingency fee arrangement please contact us at (604.688.7374) or email us at

*Note: Contingency fee arrangements are used in civil cases and are not allowed for
criminal law or family law matters.

Flat-Fees:
In some cases the procedure and nature of the legal work involved is standardized and it is possible to determine with reasonable certainty how long a matter will take and how much work is involved. In these situations we offer a flat fee rate. The advantage to you as a client is that you know how much it will cost you at the outset. If you are interested in finding out more about our flat fee service arrangements please call us at (604.688.7374) or email us at