I'm not really sure how to title this one. I was going to call it "WeirFoulds Sticks Ontario Government with Large Bill", but, while it is attention grabbing, it doesn't properly characterize my post or my opinion of the situation. So I eventually settled on the title that I used.

The Toronto Star is reporting that the Bay Street firm of WeirFoulds has billed the Ontario government an average of $31,113 per week over a 7.5 year case involving a fraud with the Ontario Realty Corp. The writer, and many commentors, appear to be outraged at the amount of money wasted by the Ontario government in this dispute.

The headline of the article suggests that the firm was billing $850 per hour for work, but it's not completely accurate. The article shows how only one of the lawyers charged $850 per hour and many other lawyers who worked on the file charged less. In reviewing the hourly rates, they don't seem particularly extraordinary. The rate is inline with the rates of senior litigators at large firms, so the rate itself does not surprise me. However, the number of hours billed by the senior litigators on the file may be somewhat high. I do not want to condemn WeirFoulds in any way on this matter as I do not know the details of the case, the complexity of the issues or why the hours worked out the way they did. Needless to say, having two senior litigators on a file is somewhat excessive. Usually, there would be one senior litigator, an associate, a law clerk, and an articling student (if available or needed). It would have been more cost effective to have the associate handle most of the file, the law clerk handle the administrative matters and the articling student doing research when necessary to keep the bill low. That way, the senior litigator would only need to bill for a few hours of prep time along with court time.

The Ontario government would also be considered a large client, and the firm would make a lot of concessions to ensure that they kept the Ontario government as a client, including lowering fees or hourly rates. While the firm did submit a cost claim, the reality is that they may have had a deal with the Ontario government to collect a smaller amount if it was unsuccessful in obtaining a cost order from the court. The Ontario government, though, could still strong-arm the firm into giving lower rates under the threat of never using them again. I think the firm would make some concessions in that situation.

Eventually, the government transferred the file to in-house lawyers and had them take it from there. This solution is obviously the cheapest as they can pay their lawyers less than one-third of the billable rate that they pay the Bay Street firms. The downside is that they need to keep staff around. However, I think the Ontario government can justify it given that they inevitably have a lot of litigation to deal with, given that it is the Ontario government.

Overall, this situation is nothing new. Large organizations typically don't have regard to the bills as the individuals approving them are not responsible for it themselves. However, many banks and insurance companies will work out a deal with the firm beforehand to ensure that they have enough in their budget to finance litigation.

        

 

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