Michael Cochrane

The applicant retained the respondent law firm for a family law matter.

The retainer agreement included an hourly rate plus a 'results achieved fee' in the event of a positive result.

After a successful trial, the firm charged a results achieved fee of $72,433.24.

The applicant brought an application to determine if this fee contravened the Solicitors Act.

The court held that the results achieved fee was contingent on the successful disposition of the matter, making it a prohibited contingency fee agreement under s. 28.1(3) of the Solicitors Act.

The firm was ordered to refund the fee.

The parties separated and initially shared a nesting arrangement in the matrimonial home.

Following the sale of the home, both parties brought motions regarding the parenting schedule, schooling, and child support.

The mother sought primary residence and interim sole custody, while the father sought to continue an alternating week schedule.

The court excluded surreptitious surveillance evidence obtained by the mother against the father.

Finding that the father's demanding schedule as a medical resident made him largely unavailable to parent the children without delegating to his extended family, the court ordered primary residence to the mother with the father having alternate weekends and Wednesday overnights.

The court also ordered the children to attend the school proposed by the mother and ordered the father to pay table child support.