We know that price is one of the most important factors you have in mind when you make a decision to hire a lawyer.
Each year, hundreds of people come to us looking for help with their disability claims. They all ask us for quotes or estimates — and many folks will ask questions about price in the first few minutes of our conversations.
We get it. Everyone wants to know about cost. You need to be sure you’re making the right decision and your finances are a mess because you have to stop working.
It’s hard to provide one-size-fits-all information about cost because there are so many variables that can influence it.
Below, you’ll find realistic price ranges and estimates, based on real-world scenarios and current clients.
What does the typical client spend with Resolute Legal?
Depending on the type of case, the amount of work done, the risks involved, and the results achieved, clients spend between $0 and $175,00 (plus taxes) for legal representation. We understand this is a big range. I explain more below.
First, almost all of our fees are paid on a contingency fee basis.You only pay if we win. We get a percentage of the money you get. Our maximum contingency percentage is 33% (plus taxes and expenses) for most cases and 40% for some workers compensation cases.
A contingency fee means we only get paid if we win. While we have a success rate of around 90% overall, we don’t win every case. At least 10% of the time, we don’t get paid anything, and have to pay back loans and interest for expenses paid on the case. Typically the cases we lose have higher amounts of time billed, and higher amounts of expenses, as compared to the average case. So our losses have a disproportional financial impact on us. And if our win rate dropped below 80% we could be out of business.
Second, we are one of the few law firms in Canada to offer a Fair Fee Guarantee. This guarantee has two parts. First, we give you 45 days after hiring us to walk away from our agreement with no charges or questions asked. So you don’t have to worry about making the wrong hiring decision. Second, at the end of the case, we may lower our maximum contingency fee of 33% if necessary to ensure the fee is fair and reasonable according to provincial regulations. If you still feel the fee is unfair, we guide you on how to ask the court to assess our fee for fairness.
Third, the amount you pay is different based on the type of case. We will review each type of case and explain the range and average fees. These fees and averages as based on our case results over the past two years:
CPP Disability
For CPP disability, the range in legal fees is $0 to $20,000 (plus taxes), with the average client spending $6,000 (plus taxes). This is a contingency fee, so the client only pays if we win. The fee percentage is applied to the one-time retroactive payment from Service Canada. The client keeps the remainder of the retroactive payment and 100% of future monthly payments to age 65. The highest fees are paid in cases that go to one or more hearings at the Society Security Tribunal.
We cannot offer contingency fee representation in all CPP disability claims. This will happen when the client will not receive the retroactive payment, or the retroactive payment will be too small. In those cases, we can represent the client on a flat fee basis. Flat fees start at $5,000 (plus taxes) for applications and range from $5,000 to $12,000 for appeals and hearings.
Workers Compensation
Workers compensation cases are the most difficult to win. We have the lowest success rate with these cases. Therefore, we have a higher risk getting paid $0 and having to pay back loans for expenses and interest.The legal fees for workers compensation ranges from $0 to $50,000 (plus taxes), with the average client spending around $7,500 (plus taxes).
All workers compensation cases start with a paid claim review. This costs $500 (plus taxes) and we review your workers compensation claim file. With this review we can advise you on the issues for your appeal and next steps needed. We can then also advise if we can represent you. And if so, if we can do it on a contingency fee or flat fee basis.
Our contingency fee in workers compensation cases is 40% (plus taxes). His higher percentage reflects the greater risk associated with all workers compensation appeals.
Our flat fees start at $5,000 for workers compensation applications and range from $7,500 to $15,000 for appeals and hearings.
Long-term Disability and life Insurance
Long-term disability and life insurance cases have the widest range in costs. They also have the highest financial risks for the firm because we have to invest more time and money than other types of disability claims. Legal fees range from $0 to $175,000 (plus taxes), with the average client spending around $16,000 (plus taxes). Clients only pay a fee if we are successful in negotiating a settlement or getting your claim approved. If your claim is approved, our fee does not apply to any future monthly payments clients get to age 65.
With long-term disability and life insurance cases, clients will usually get a legal fee reimbursement from the insurance company for 5% to 60% of the legal fee, so the average net legal fee ends up being less than $16,000 (plus taxes). The amount of the legal fee reimbursement varies widely based on your province, with Ontario having the highest reimbursements and Atlantic Canada having the lowest reimbursements. With long-term disability and life insurance claims we offer a fair fee guarantee. It is common for us to reduce the fee percentage down from 33% when it is necessary to ensure the legal fee is fair and reasonable according to your province’s legal fee regulations.
We also offer flat fee pricing on long-term disability claims. Flat fees must be paid in full in advance regardless of success. Flat fees start at $7,500 for basic applications and range from $7,500 to $15,000 for appeals and hearings. Flat fees for litigation can range from $15,000 to 25,000 depending on the stage of litigation.
Disability Tax Credit
For disability tax credit matters, we typically only represent people when their appeal gets to the Tax Court of Canada. However, if you are a client with us for another disability claim we may handle your Disability Tax Credit Application and first appeal at no additional charge. We don’t handle disability tax credit cases on a contingency fee. Rather, we charge a fixed fee of $7,500 to $15,000 depending on the complexity of the case. This fee is payable win or lose.
Multiple Cases
It is common for clients to work with us on multiple disability claims. This creates efficiencies in work, so we are often able to reduce fees overall. However, this would be dependent on the amount of work needed on each individual claim and whether the work can be transferred between cases.
One-Time Consultations & Coaching Program
We provide one-time legal consultations to people who need specific legal advice on an issue. The cost of these consultations range from $249 to $949 (plus taxes) depending on the complexity of your issue and time involved with the consultation.
We are developing a coaching program that will be charged as a monthly subscription fee. We have not decided on the price, but we want to make it affordable for people who choose to represent themselves but want more support from us behind the scenes. We will post the prices once this program goes live.
Disability Claim Protection Service
With our disability claim protection service, we represent you when your disability claim is approved and the insurance company is paying benefits to you. You pay a monthly subscription fee. The default subscription fee for the first year is $375 (plus tax). However, this amount can increase or decrease each year based on the amount of work required. Monthly rates are locked in for each year and you can choose to withdraw at any time. We also charge more if you have more than one insurance policy.
Does Resolute Legal negotiate the contingency fee percentages?
We don’t negotiate our contingency fee percentages up-front. Rather, we offer a fair fee guarantee, which means that we will reduce the contingency fee at the end of the case when it is necessary to ensure the fee charged is fair and reasonable. And, if you still don’t think the fee is fair, we guide you on how to have a court review or fee for fairness. The court has the power to reduce our fee to ensure it is fair and reasonable according to the rules for legal fees for your province. Our Fair Fee Guarantee also gives you 45 days to walk away from our fee agreement with no charges or questions asked.
Sometimes even the maximum contingency fee does not result in a fee that is fair to us based on the work done and expenses we incurred. We lose money on these cases in the sense that the fee charged is less than what we had to pay our staff to work on the case. However, we can’t charge more than the maximum percentage. This is another risk we have with contingency fees and why we don’t negotiate a lower percentage up-front.