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I am familiar with the loser paying system…..
Im also aware that attorneys like to think of themselves as “Superman”(your words) while knowing good and well you would not be doing that noble work if there wasn’t a massive financial reward; so again your moral high horse argument falls flat to everyone but yourself.
So by all means feel free to answer the question, but your refusal to tells me it’s probably 40% if not more because you’re counting on the loser paying the settlement vs taking it to court.
You really don't understand how loser pays works in Ontario if you persist with your question. Nobody I know, me included, charges 40 points for PI cases in any context.
But you do like to talk about things you don't understand about litigation up here. Let me help you.
In the loser pays system in Ontario, the losing party has to pay the winner's fee on different scales based on the judge's discretion. We can get paid on three scales, partial indemnity, substantial indemnity and full indemnity, based on how big an ass the defendant has been during the case, or before it (in layman's terms).
In Ontario we have the Victims Bill of Rights Act which says in cases like the ones I do my client is entitled to at least substantial indemnity costs. Although there is some play, that means the loser pays all the expenses and about 75% or so of the legal costs, at minimum. In many of my cases, because the defendant institution has covered up for a pedo, I get 100% of my fee paid by the defendant, so my client nets almost 100% of his damages, unlike most American jurisdictions. It works out that I will normally get paid somewhere between 15-25% of the amount of damages my client gets. And upwards of 75% of that will be paid by the defendant not my client. And strangely, not all of that money goes to me. We pay staff, advertising, professional fees etc. You know, overhead. Maybe you have heard of it in your stellar business career?
Your comment about me getting paid "massive" amounts for this would be funny if it wasn't so ignorant.
In Canada awards on these cases are orders of magnitude lower than American verdicts in civil cases of a similar nature. For instance the
largest Canadian award in a SA case is around 2.3 million dollars. The largest US award is over 100 million for a single victims case (apples to apples). Now figure in the difference in currencies. A U.S. lawyer doing similar work to what I do would make a least 10X as much as I do if he had access to a similar work flow. But I am greedy right? Any lawyer working in corporate at a good firm in Canada will likely make more than I do in a year.
I really am not in this for the money. I made a crap ton of money on certain technical aspects of MVA/LTD cases years ago and then retired. I came back because they changed the law in Ontario to eliminate the limitation period on SA cases and they needed mature practitioners to handle the flood of these complex and demanding cases. I probably make about 25% or less of what I did doing MVA/LTD work doing SA work. I do it because I love the work and my clients need me, and it is kind of nice being on the side of angels all the time.
It is unwise to assume that everyone else's heart is as dark as yours.
