Working as a Crown - Answering Questions

[N. Mink]

@Thrive92 LOL, NO. 

I just sidled up to the office and turned on the charm. May not work if you’re not particularly charming, of course. 

1 minute ago, Hegdis said:

Every legal aid office has some one that needs help right now, or is a difficult client generally, or who just needs a goddamn lawyer to walk by and be available for five minutes. Be the lawyer who checks in, says hello, helps some one out in the moment without getting paid. Do a good turn and you're going to get it back tenfold.

Aside from being just decent behaviour, it gives you a good reputation with the people on the ground. They are the ones who have the power to point clients to you.

100% this.

I definitely took some clients that more experienced counsel wouldn’t (or couldn’t any longer) represent.  

[Hegdis]

I should mention that Crown are also a good source of clients, believe it or not. If they're running a crazy bail court, and some one in the back is turning themselves in on a warrant but is visibly nodding off or tweaking or looking like they are going to bolt, Crown are going to be scanning the room for defence who can just stand up and get the file moving along. From there, if you can't land a client, you're in the wrong practise.

 

[Thrive92]

5 minutes ago, N. Mink said:

I just sidled up to the office and turned on the charm. May not work if you’re not particularly charming, of course. 

6 minutes ago, Hegdis said:

Every legal aid office has some one that needs help right now, or is a difficult client generally, or who just needs a goddamn lawyer to walk by and be available for five minutes. Be the lawyer who checks in, says hello, helps some one out in the moment without getting paid. Do a good turn and you're going to get it back tenfold.

2 minutes ago, Hegdis said:

I should mention that Crown are also a good source of clients, believe it or not. If they're running a crazy bail court, and some one in the back is turning themselves in on a warrant but is visibly nodding off or tweaking or looking like they are going to bolt, Crown are going to be scanning the room for defence who can just stand up and get the file moving along. From there, if you can't land a client, you're in the wrong practise.

 

I can do this.

Although I am not particularly charming, I have a crushing need to be liked and accepted, going out of my way to get an attaboy.

Thank god that I dont have to bribe.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Thrive92

[CleanHands]

5 minutes ago, realpseudonym said:

I think regardless of jurisdiction, that this is important. Looking at the amount you can potentially bill is just that: potential. You have to get the work first, before you can do the case and bill it out. Once you have a lot of work, you can bill a lot, even to Legal Aid. But building your reputation to the point where people want you to be their lawyer (or working for another lawyer) is the key part, and the challenge in starting any practice. 

You're absolutely right about building a practice being a daunting grind (and to be clear I don't have the experience of having done it yet so the value of my input here is limited), but I do disagree with the "regardless of jurisdiction" and the "any practice" aspect of this post.

If someone wants to start off in Toronto or Vancouver that is going to be a struggle in an oversaturated market. But there are places where there are too many files and not enough lawyers. The first defence lawyers to employ me got called in Saskatchewan when starting out so they could immediately get work and even take on even the sort of serious, high-complexity files that one needs to be a 10 year call in BC to get (with mentors to lean on at the early stages, of course). They advised me that if I was willing to go there after getting called I'd have clients lining up at the door and could have a house bought and paid for in a few years. It's a path I've been tempted to pursue.

[realpseudonym]

1 minute ago, CleanHands said:

do disagree with the "regardless of jurisdiction" and the "any practice" aspect of this post.

If someone wants to start off in Toronto or Vancouver that is going to be a struggle in an oversaturated market. But there are places where there are too many files and not enough lawyers. The first defence lawyers to employ me got called in Saskatchewan when starting out so they could immediately get work and even take on even the sort of serious, high-complexity files that one needs to be a 10 year call in BC to get (with mentors to lean on at the early stages, of course). They advised me that if I was willing to go there after getting called I'd have clients lining up at the door and could have a house bought and paid for in a few years. It's a path I've been tempted to pursue.

I agree. I didn’t mean to imply that there’s a uniform level of difficulty in building a practice. Just that finding clients is always a prerequisite to being able to bill out work. Regardless of whether it’s by choosing an underserved client base, getting in good with legal admins, connecting with other lawyers, etc, you need to have clients. Which is pretty self-evident, but I just wanted to note that the “how much can you bill” question puts the cart before the horse. 

[ltmaverick25]

Just curious what the going hourly rate would be for criminal lawyers now. 

1. What is the average a sole practitioner charges by the hour? I understand its different in each market, and / or depending on how many years of experience. So feel free to indicate the market and years practicing.

2. Same question but for criminal lawyers working in a firm. Small / Mid / Large.

3. Do criminal lawyers charge exclusively based on hourly billing? Is there some special bonus for winning, or obtaining favorable outcomes?

4. If you were a sole practitioner, or running your own small firm, what is the ideal support staff you would want to have in place? 1 paralegal, 2? admin assistants etc.. Yes I know you wont be able to afford any of the above at first. I'm still curious what you would want to have if you could.

[BlockedQuebecois]

10 minutes ago, ltmaverick25 said:

3. Do criminal lawyers charge exclusively based on hourly billing? Is there some special bonus for winning, or obtaining favorable outcomes?

In Ontario, this would be viewed as a contingency fee and would violate the rules of professional conduct. I suspect the same is true in all other Canadian jurisdictions. 

Alternative fee arrangements, such as a flat rate for certain charges, would generally be fine, so long as they are fair and reasonable. 

Edited March 12 by BlockedQuebecois

[realpseudonym]

21 minutes ago, ltmaverick25 said:

1. What is the average a sole practitioner charges by the hour? I understand its different in each market, and / or depending on how many years of experience. So feel free to indicate the market and years practicing.

2. Same question but for criminal lawyers working in a firm. Small / Mid / Large.

It’s anything from around $100 per hour to god knows what. 

I’m not prepared to post my rates here, but I’ll say that my rate wasn’t the barrier to getting paid early on. It was the client running out of money. The clients available to most junior defence lawyers usually (a) are legal aid clients or (b) have limited funds. LAO has limits to the hours you can bill on a file. The private clients might be willing to pay whatever per hour, but if they only have $4000.00, it didn’t matter if I was billing at $200.00 per hour or $400.00 per hour. I usually had to make do with the money available. Which is why a lot of lawyers will use flat fee or block fee billing for some matters. 

[ltmaverick25]

3 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

In Ontario, this would be viewed as a contingency fee and would violate the rules of professional conduct. I suspect the same is true in all other Canadian jurisdictions. 

Alternative fee arrangements, such as a flat rate for certain charges, would generally be fine, so long as they are fair and reasonable. 

I'm assuming this is exclusive to criminal law?

[LMP]

1 minute ago, ltmaverick25 said:

I'm assuming this is exclusive to criminal law?

Quasi-Criminal and family law too (at least in Ontario).