By Julius Melnitzer | January 5, 2005
BAD WAY FOR LAW FIRM TO START NEW YEAR
On New Year’s Eve, Ontario Superior Court Justice Todd Robinson denied Woodrbridge, ON law firm Capo Sgro LLP‘s application for a charging order over settlement fees, brought after the client sought an assessment (still pending) of the firm’s total billing of $231,000, of which $48,000 had been outstanding for almost six months. Robinson ruled Capo had not demonstrated that the client could not or would not pay. He rejected the firm’s plea to infer unwillingness or inability to pay from the client’s refusal to direct settlement funds to Capo and the fact that the client’s principal made some $183,000 in payments on his personal credit card. To further ruin the evening’s potential celebrations, Robinson ordered the firm to pay $3,850 in costs within 30 days irrespective of the assessment’s outcome and without any right of set-off against unpaid fees.
Related Article: Recent costs award confirms court’s acknowledgement of risks, costs of prosecuting med mal cases
UNRULY COUNSEL ORDERED TO DINE TOGETHER
Confronted with fractious counsel on both sides, Chief Judge R. David Proctor of the Northern District of Alabama ordered them to lunch together to “discuss how they can act professionally throughout the rest of this case”. According to Practice Source, he directed plaintiff’s lawyer to pay for the meal and defendant’s lawyer to leave the tip. Proctor also ordered “a joint report describing the conversation that occurred at lunch and the amount of the tip”. Now here’s the elephant in the room: will the meal tab, the tip and the time spent at lunch and writing the report end up on the clients’ bills?
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LANDMARK ELECTRONIC TRIAL PRODUCES $259 MILLION AWARD FOR LENCZNER CLIENT
The first fully electronic trial in the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench, lasting seven weeks, culminated in a $259 million judgment for WSIB Investments (Infrastructure) Pooled Fund Trust, represented by a Lenczner Slaght LLP team featuring Peter Griffin and Dena Varah as lead counsel. The firm’s press release states that the disgorgement judgment, based on breach of fiduciary duty, knowing assistance and knowing receipt, ” . . . reinforces the foundational fiduciary duties owed by general partners to limited partners and the consequences that arise when general partners and their related entities elevate their own interests over those of their limited partners”.
Related Article: SCC launches new electronic filing portal
CYBERSECURITY EXPERT JOINS BLG
Hélène Deschamps Marquis has joined Borden Ladner Gervais LLP’s Montreal office as national co-leader of the firm’s privacy and cybersecurity group. According to BLG’s press release, Deschamps Marquis’ practice, which includes clients in the energy, financial services, public, health care, and transportation sectors, embraces breach and incident response, regulatory compliance, global data and privacy frameworks, and negotiating complex cross-border technology arrangements and transactions. Before joining BLG, she led the privacy and cybersecurity law practice at a leading global accounting firm.
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Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at [email protected] or https://legalwriter.net/contact.