Along with eight other provincial employees, Argyropoulos adjudicated disputes over legal bills between lawyers and their clients. They handled hundreds of cases per year in Toronto alone, some of them worth millions in contested fees. And he loved it.
Then his colleagues started disappearing. Three part-timers left and were not replaced. Two others moved on to different gigs in government. Another resigned. After Argyropoulos called it quits himself, in February, there were just two left.
And that, according to Argyropoulos and a slew of lawyers who spoke with the Star, is the crux of the problem. With a dearth of manpower devoted to the task, applications to fight legal bills in Toronto are languishing in a backlog of delayed cases — at a time, it’s worth noting, when surveys show lawyers’ fees ballooning to historic girth.
A recent Superior Court decision from Justice Sean Dunphy remarked on how Toronto’s legal profession is “frustrated” with the delays, which he said are “by all accounts, unacceptably long.”
Argyropoulos said it’s taking a year just to book a preliminary hearing when it used to take three months, and up to three years to get a final settlement. Beyond mere inconvenience (though certainly that), the former government worker argued, the delays are putting the whole principle of access to justice in jeopardy.
“It’s just a disaster,” Argyropoulos, 46, told the Star. “There are lawyers, believe it or not, that have called me and said: ‘George, I can die. I’ve got cancer. All I want is my money.’ I’ve heard this.
“And the public is not being serviced,” he added. “In essence they’re bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.”
The legal bill dispute system in Toronto is now run by two government workers called “hearings officers.” The branch of the province’s Ministry of the Attorney General handles about 750 disputes per year, Argyropoulos said. Anyone who gets a legal bill from a lawyer can apply for a bill “assessment” at the designated office near Osgoode Hall on University Ave.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled to review evidence that will be called and determine whether there will be witnesses; then a later hearing is held to decide whether the bill is fair or should be reduced.
Brendan Crawley, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General, said in an emailed statement that the government is committed to addressing the delays and is “actively exploring a number of options.” These include pulling in officers from other regions to help with the Toronto backlog, and recruiting new workers “in the near future.”
“We recognize that we have more work to do to address this important issue,” Crawley said.
Robert Schipper is a lawyer in Toronto who frequently deals with the legal bill assessment process. A couple of weeks ago, he was at the assessment office to book a hearing. The earliest date they could give him, he said, was April 2018.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and unfortunately we can’t accelerate the process because there aren’t enough hearing officers. There’s just two,” Schipper said.
Ramesh Mehta feels the same way. Last summer, he said he challenged a legal bill of more than $110,000 that he incurred trying to get money from a separate civil suit in Brampton. After filing his challenge, the assessment office in Toronto emailed him saying they had to adjourn his case because “we do not have any Assessment Officer available to hear your matter.” The next available date for a hearing, according to the email Mehta provided to the Star, was October 2016.
“Why don’t they have an officer?” Mehta asked. “It is too much of a long time.”
Low staffing also disrupts the opportunity to settle disputes by mediation, Schipper said. He explained that hearings officers can mediate and find collaborative solutions between parties and lawyers so that challenges are dealt with quicker. But if the officer tries this and fails, the same officer can’t be the adjudicator on the case when it goes to a full-blown assessment hearing. With only two officers left in Toronto, this can make delays longer or prevent possible mediations from taking place at all, Schipper said.
Mick Hassell sees the issue as a symptom of a court system beleaguered overall by short-staffing and delays. The lawyer suggested there may be too many procedural steps and not enough adjudicators or courtrooms, and that the justice system is stuck in the past, relying too heavily on paper instead of taking advantage of efficiencies of the digital era, such as email and electronic filing.
“Everything having to be served and filed; you’ve got to print it out, send it, swear an affidavit,” he said. “It’s very cumbersome just to send a document around. It’s as though the courts are oblivious to email.”
Lawyers also said that assessment cases are becoming more complex and convoluted, partially because legal bills have been rising for several years. James Morton, another lawyer who deals with assessments, said the average case used to be settled in an afternoon; now they can take several days or even weeks.
And the backlog could have consequences beyond delayed justice. Ben Hanuka, principal at the firm Law Works, said there’s a risk that lawyers who keep experiencing delayed payments because of a clogged assessment system could start demanding money upfront.
“The less credit a lawyer is prepared to extend to his client for the payment of bills, the more difficult it will be to access lawyers,” Hanuka said.
Argyropoulous, who worked in the assessment office for seven years, said that while the activity there may be little-known, the stakes are “incredibly high” for those involved.: lawyers owed large sums and clients who feel ripped off by potentially thousands of dollars.
“I really hope they fix it for the public’s sake. Because it’s only going to get worse,” he said.
“The public deserves better,” said Argyropoulous.
So, you want to challenge your legal bill…
You’ve just been walloped with a huge legal bill. You don’t like it, and it’s not fair.
What do you do?
Talk to your lawyer
This is the obvious first step, as proposed by the Law Society of Ontario and Pro Bono Law Ontario, a charity that helps low-income clients. If you don’t like your bill, tell your lawyer. Maybe they’ll trim some of the costs so that everyone’s happy.
Head down to 330 University Ave.
If that doesn’t work, it’s time to take measures into your own hands. Within one month of receiving your bill, you must bring four copies of it to the seventh-floor assessment office at 330 University Ave., the Canada Life Building. Pay the court filing fee, fill out a “requisition form” and then you’ll get a notice for a preliminary hearing date.
Serve your lawyer
To let your lawyer know this is going down, you must serve them the notice of assessment and the order, given to you by the assessment office, that the bill is being challenged. You can hire a personal service agent to deliver this, or just mail it yourself. Sidenote: Even if you’ve paid your bill, or if your lawyer claimed a portion of winnings in your legal case, you can still challenge your fees to get money back. You can also hire a lawyer to represent you in the assessment hearing process.
Preliminary hearing
Because of backlogs in the system, it’s likely you’ll have to wait up to a year to get to the next step. It’s possible that the hearings officer will mediate the disagreement between you and your lawyer, and try to arrive at a price that’s agreeable to both sides. If this can’t happen, then the officer will determine how much evidence will be presented by each side, and then book an assessment hearing at a later date. Again, because of the delays in the system, the hearing might not take place for up to two years.
The big show
Finally, at the assessment hearing, your lawyer must convince the presiding officer that your bill is “fair and reasonable,” according to the Solicitors Act. The officer considers a slew of factors, including: how much time the lawyer worked on your case; the amount of money at stake; your ability to pay the bill; the result of your case (if it’s over); and your lawyer’s skill and competence. The officer can deliver an oral decision at the hearing, or take time to think about it and deliver a written ruling. If you don’t like it, you can challenge the ruling by submitting a motion to the Superior Court of Ontario.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Alex Ballingall
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