What to expect when getting (free) legal aid? I want to sue my old landlord. The amount wouldn't be too much so I could do it in small claims court. I had searched the internet and found some free legal advice from the Legal Service Society. I booked a meeting with them and got a bad feeling and abruptly told them I wasn't interested and left. I don't mean to sound prejudice but the girl in the meeting was very young (early 20s) and emphasized how she couldn't give me legal advice so I was a bit confused as to why I was there. I think her job was to collect information and then give it to the actual lawyer. Is this normal? Also she had me sign something saying I expressly waive any right to legal action I may have against the people advising me and their organization. Is this normal? She had asked me if I wanted to communicate through mail or e-mail and I thought that was and I had been under the impression this was a one time visit. I'm having trouble finding the right words, but how can I find out what to expect from working with them? I feel really bad as I basically told the girl I didn't want to work with her and she almost started crying. Did I over react?
Legal Services Society is a non-profit organization created by the BC Legislative Assembly through this act, created in order to serve the legal needs of certain classes of society, defined vaguely with reference to "a reasonable person of modest means". Accordingly, they have rules regarding who they can and cannot serve. and they are constrained financially. With vast demands on their resources and little by way of resources, prudent triage is called for. That is, when you show up, you shouldn't expect to talk to a senior attorney (or an attorney). From what I can determine, you cannot expect to get your problem solved right away. It is also not clear that your problem is within the scope of what they do (criminal, incarceration, serious family matters, immigration). "Giving legal advice" is something that only a few people are legally allowed to do – lawyers, who have you as their client. If the person were an attorney, they still couldn't give you legal advice until the appropriate relationship is created (and they have the relevant facts). The person you met with may be a paralegal or a law student. Under the law (sect. 8 of the act), you cannot sue them for damages because of their actions, except if carried out in bad faith. The waiver might be a bit redundant, but it is a wise idea to tell people that you can't sue them. If you want to know what you can expect from the lawyer, this publication will be helpful, though it is generic and not specific as to your particular issue.
No. An engagement letter is a written confirmation that you have hired a lawyer which also sets forth the contractual obligations of the parties (i.e. the basis upon which attorneys' fees will be charged in the case). Instead of serving as an "estimate" or "approximate quote" of the fees to be charged, it is evidence that there is an attorney-client relationship and it sets forth the contractual terms of that relationship. Unless the engagement letter is for a fixed fee (which is uncommon but not unheard of), it only sets forth a method for determining what legal fees are owed and does not predict in advance what those fees will be. An engagement letter often does set forth a "retainer" amount that must be paid when the lawyer is hired, but a "retainer" is more akin to a security deposit on a lease than an estimate of what the total charges for the representation will be. Lawyers are required as a matter of professional ethics to put these things in writing. Of course, it wouldn't be improper for an engagement letter to include an estimate of the fees that will be charged in a representation as well as the other matters described above. But, that would be rather unusual. Firstly, since these people didn't even type my mobile number correctly, I'm uneasy about them drafting a legal agreement for me, where I wanted each and every clause to be thoroughly checked. I'm not confident of them being thorough. This certainly doesn't make a great first impression, although it reflects more on the quality of the office staff than on the legal acumen of the lawyers. I wouldn't blow a simple typo in writing a phone number out of proportion. How do I tell them that I do not need their services? Advise them by telephone, or better yet by letter, email or text, that you have decided not to retain their services. Does their sending of an engagement letter mean that I pay them for their time of drafting the letter? The firm probably could charge you, but it is customary not to charge for drafting an engagement letter. I wasn't expecting an engagement letter. I was expecting something like an ordinary email which said something like "this is our approximate hourly fee". Lawyers, as you might expect from their line of work, need to be more formal as a result of their legal ethics requirements, so this is very normal. The engagement letter constitutes a contract between the parties if the engagement is commenced. An informal communication, followed by a formal one, could lead to confusion over which one applies and could lead to mistakes where someone given an informal communication never received the required formal engagement letter. their hourly fees (which does not look reasonable to me) Lawyers are expensive, and good lawyers are worth it. The supply and demand issues are particularly intense in India because there are fewer lawyers there capita than in many other countries.
There does seem to be a meme in the UAE of people threatening legal action for negative reviews, as a form of defamation. The police will simply tell them that this is not a crime, go hire a lawyer if you want to sue them. If you block them, perhaps they don't have any other way to contact you (seems that was the point of blocking them), which means that you cannot receive their offer &quot;If you pay us AED 1,000 we will not sue you&quot;, which could be a problem if they win their court case. Still, it is perfectly legal to ignore or block them, up to the point that you are actually served with legal papers. When they actually sue you, &quot;blocking&quot; is irrelevant, they will hire a process server to hand you the legal papers that command you to appear in court.
You don't need to have an existing relationship with a lawyer to refuse to talk to the police. You can tell the police you want a lawyer before answering questions. Generally speaking, this should result in the police leaving you alone, giving you time to reach out to an attorney on your own timeline. This is of course a bit more complicated if you've already been arrested, but in most cases, you'll still be able to make calls out of jail to try to find a lawyer. If you have serious concerns about this kind of situation, having an attorney on retainer would be a good idea. The business end of the transaction is fairly simple. You would likely sign an engagement agreement with the lawyer in which you agree to pay a modest sum -- $500 or $1,000, imagine, and the lawyer would agree to take your calls when they come in and swoop in to deal with the police as necessary. The lawyer would be required to place your money in a trust account and not touch it until you call him to use his services. If you're expecting the lawyer to go further by actually appearing in court for you, filing motions, defending you at trial, etc., the retainer would likely be substantially higher.
Usual disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. If you are serious about proceeding with this, talk to a lawyer who specialises in this kind of thing. I imagine that you will need to provide proof of the above incidents in order for any legal action to succeed. Accessing a tenant's room without notice or permission, and without a very good reason (e.g. a gas leak) is likely to be classed as harassment; specifically, "acts calculated to interfere with the peace or comfort of the residential occupier". Renting out your room and removing your belongings before the end of a tenancy is likely to be illegal eviction. Both of these are criminal offences under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. Shelter mentions that it's normally local authorities, rather than the police or individuals, who carry out prosecutions under this act (see also: Shelter articles, Landlord Law Blog articles), so you might want to start there. There is also the matter of civil action, including for breach of contract. For that, consider speaking to a lawyer.
A settlement is fundamentally a contract where parties A and B promise to do certain things (one of them being "stop litigating"). A court order is an enforceable order to do something. A contract cannot be directly enforced (where force is used to make a person comply), it requires a court order for actual enforcement. The conditions of a contract might be enforceable, but you can't get the sheriff to come out based just on a contract. It appears that you got to the "facilitation" phase where the parties talk about the issue and the CRT case manager talks to the parties in neutral terms, aiming for an agreement. If you don't reach an agreement, the Tribunal Decision Process escalates the matter. Under the decision process, the CRT member makes a decision, and it can be enforced in court. They state that "For a $25 fee, the CRT can turn your agreement into an order, if both parties agree that an order should be issued. This is called a “consent resolution order”." I suppose that you did not go through that step, and you only have an agreement. So you would need a separate court process to get a court order. Because everything that you did in this negotiation phase is confidential, if you want CRT to give you something that is enforceable, you have to present the case from the beginning, since they don't have access to what has happened before. The problem in your account is that a settlement has to be reached by yourselves – possibly with the assistance of the CRT case manager. I assume you did actually get a settlement (agreement) with the landlord, but have not filed for a consent resolution order. It may be that the case is too old for you to just pay the $25, and it does require agreement by the other party. Read their FAQ about how cases end.
This is an increasingly common practice in the UK for dismissals, especially for reasons of redundancy. What is going on here is that they are attempting to enter into what until recently was known as a compromise agreement, and is now termed settlement agreement. Normally, when you are made redundant, you are entitled to statutory redundancy pay (amount depends on age and length of service; see https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay). You can take this and do not need to sign anything. However, sometimes companies make slightly more generous offers in exchange for you agreeing not to take them to tribunal/court or discuss/disclose certain matters. This would often involve more money and an agreed reference. These agreements only have legal standing if you have taken legal advice from a person qualified to give it. The UK's national conciliation and arbitration service ACAS has information on settlement agreements at http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4395 Therefore the employer is offering to pay legal fees because they need you to get advice before you sign a document which protects them. They are suggesting solicitors because they know of solicitors willing to do this work for the price they are willing to pay. Some companies will do this for every dismissal and have a have a standard package for enhanced redundancy. Other companies decide for each case. Before you proceed to arrange a solicitor, you should check: That you are free to choose another solicitor who will do the same for £500. That this will be paid whether or not you agree to the terms. What your length of service is, what your statutory entitlement is and what the difference is between that and what you are being offered. You should also think carefully about whether you have any potential claims against the employer - for instance, if you think you are not being made redundant because the employer is doing less of a particular type of work but because you have raised issues of discrimination. You are probably being asked to give up your right to pursue this. In terms of choice of solicitor, a solicitor which gets work from employer recommendations probably won't be too forthright in encouraging you to challenge unfavourable terms (even if they do not work for employers). If you are a member of a trade union, they will be able to suggest lawyers who do settlement agreements for employees on a regular basis. If not (and I assume not as otherwise they would be helping you through this), I would suggest finding a firm that specialises in representing employees - some solicitors' firms like Thompsons and Morrish are pretty open about their focus.
If you're in the United States, another lawyer in a firm you've hired may or may not be your attorney, but it would not be uncommon for him to have some involvement in the case, and he would be expected to treat you as a client in terms of privilege and conflicts of interest. Just the same, this is something you need to be very direct on. &quot;Are you my attorney?&quot; or &quot;Have we established an attorney-client relationship?&quot; are going to be your best options.