Initial consultations require an appointment. Please contact us through the Contact Us page. Your inquiry will be distributed to the appropriate lawyer to assist you and you will receive a telephone call or email based on the information you provided.

Due to the litigation areas of practice we may need to reschedule or cancel booked appointments because the lawyers can be called to Court on short notice, stay longer in Court, as required. Some files also have multiple lawyers involved and scheduling can become complicated and so, this may also result in the rescheduling of your appointment.

Please schedule your appointments with the appropriate law clerk. You can contact them by telephone or refer to our Staff page for their email addresses.

With the changes in technology and in light of the Covid-19 Pandemic, it is not necessary for you to make frequent visits to our office.

As a matter of convenience, for the lawyer, staff and clients, we prefer to communicate about your file by e-mail to send you letters, accounts and copies of the documents/material we send and receive on your file. We are also conducting Zoom meetings to assist you and allow you to provide information, review documents or discuss your case from the comfort of you own home.

We will keep you informed about all aspects of your matter as they arise and discuss with you any significant decisions that you may be required to make. We will provide you with our best legal advice, but ultimately you will make the final decisions and provide us with your written instructions.

Our law clerks and assistants deal with as many of the telephone calls as possible. They are not lawyers and cannot offer you any legal advice, but they are there to assist you with booking appointments, provide general information about your file, for example, status update, Court dates, whether they have received documents from the opposing party, and can obtain instructions from you to pass along to your lawyer. This will also assist you with legal fees.

If you are required to leave a message for your lawyer or law clerk/assistant make sure you provide your full name, or the name the file is in, contact number and a brief description of the purpose of your call, your lawyer or staff will return your call same day, or within 24 hours. As a reminder, our lawyers are often in Court, at out of office appointments, conferences, mediation, etc., and it may not be possible for your lawyer to personally return your telephone call. The lawyer’s clerk/assistant will deal with your enquiries during these times.

Lawyers and law clerks charge for the time they spend. You will be charged for all your contact with your lawyer and law clerk, including telephone calls, voicemail and faxes. Your call may be directed first to an assistant. If the purpose of your telephone call is to obtain specific information or provide information (for example, have we received a certain document yet from the other side?), that contact can be with the lawyer’s assistant. Clerks and Lawyers work as a team to better serve you.

Payment of any Account or a Retainer, can be made by cheque, sent by mail or dropped off at the office. You can attend at the office and pay by debit card or credit card (we accept Visa and Mastercard). Credit card payments can also be made with our Receptionist via telephone, and we will then email you a copy of your Receipt.

We also accept E-Transfers, sent to accounting@durhamlawyers.ca. All E-transfers require a Security Question, please contact the Law Clerk for the Lawyer handling your matter, by telephone, to verbally provide you with the Security Question and Security Answer for your e-transfer.

There is a cost to you for every contact you have with your lawyer and law clerk. To reduce your legal fees we suggest the following:

(a) if we are waiting for documentation or some event and we have advised you that we will contact you or will forward same to you upon receipt, do not call everyday looking for same;

(b) instead of providing small individual bits of information throughout the day by sending multiple emails, collect all your thoughts or information and prepare a draft email which you can add to through the day, etc. and send once you believe you have provided everything that you wish to relay to your lawyer or the law clerk;

(c) organize yourself before you phone, and ensure you have all the information you need available for the telephone call or Zoom meeting. Also, consider taking notes during your meetings and telephone call with our office, rather than relying on memory.

Please be aware that everything we do on your file is billable time, which includes; telephone calls, conversations, email or letter communication with you, opposing Counsel and any other person involved in your file, legal research, preparing and filing your documents in Court, in-person and Zoom meetings, meetings at other offices, and Court attendances.

Time spent on your file is in increments of 0.1 hour, which is 0 to 6 minutes up to 1.0 or one hour. Generally, correspondence and telephone calls are 0.1 hour, unless they are over the 6 minutes.

The hourly rates of the Lawyers are based on their years of experience and at Creighton Law LLP they are in the range or $250.00 to 500.00 per hour.

PLEASE NOTE: We require Retainers for all litigation/family law files and you will be required to top them up, as Accounts are rendered and your file is still active.

If you have questions about your accounts, regarding the fees and/or disbursements, those inquiries are to be directed to the Lawyer on your file. If you need to make payment arrangements, please direct all inquiries to our Office Managers/Bookkeepers. Their contact information can be found on our Staff page.

All information you provide to us is completely private and confidential. All the details of your case will be handled with the utmost confidentiality and respect for your privacy. The privilege of confidentiality between solicitor and client is, in law, a protection which belongs to the client.

If you require some or all communication about your file to not only come from you or be relayed to you, but through a family member, then we will need your written permission to do so.