Piché & Company prides itself on providing legal services in a cost-effective and affordable manner. However, legal fees can be significant, and you need to know in advance what to expect.

Subject to the factors described further below, our general fee structure is based on charges of $325.00 per hour of time spent on your file.

Generally, our fees can also take into account the following factors:

• complexity of the matter, difficulty and novelty of the questions involved, skills, specialized knowledge (including use of existing document templates) and responsibility of the lawyer;
• amount of money and value of property involved;
• number and importance of documents prepared or reviewed;
• circumstances under which services are rendered;
• customary charges of other lawyers of equal standing; and
• end results achieved.

Essentially, these factors translate into our having a right to charge extra fees on files which, for instance, are conducted particularly efficiently, or are complex, unusual or specialized and require specific and uncommon forms of legal knowledge, or which require work to be done on short notice and therefore require us to delay work being done for other clients.

Overall, premiums are only sought in exceptional circumstances, and whether a premium is in order can generally be determined and agreed in advance. Further, the client can often control situations where urgency may arise, thereby completely avoiding any premiums due to circumstances under which services are rendered.

We would be happy to discuss legal services you require and to estimate our fees to provide such services. However, all such estimates are non-binding: numerous circumstances beyond our control (and often within the control of the client) can affect the amount of time or effort required to complete a given task, and therefore we cannot give binding estimates except in the most exceptional and specific circumstances.

We charge our clients for the various disbursement costs we incur for them. Examples include:

• Courier charges
• Filing fees
• Agents' fees
• Long distance charges
• Costs of travel and accommodation incurred on behalf of clients
• Expert evidence/witness fees

Unlike many firms, we do not currently charge a fee for faxes (incoming or outgoing), nor do we charge for incidental photocopying or printing of short documents. However, we do charge 25 cents per page for larger printing or photocopying jobs.

Except in certain cases where the client and subject matter of legal services is outside British Columbia, all legal fees are subject to provincial tax of 7% and federal goods and services tax of 6%, and most disbursements to goods and services tax.

We render bills at the end of each calendar month. We find that this keeps clients aware of (and better able to control) their ongoing costs, rather than permitting surprise bills at the end of extended projects. Our accounts are due immediately when rendered and overdue 30 days thereafter. We render timely services to our clients, and in return expect timely payment: except in exceptional circumstances, we cease work on all files of a client who has one or more overdue accounts.

We do not currently accept payments by credit card.

We do charge fixed fees for a limited number of our corporate law services. In particular (and subject to all applicable taxes):

• Incorporation of B.C. company: Ranges from approximately $1,150 to $1500 depending on company structure
• Incorporation of federal corporation and extra-provincial registration in British Columbia: $1,800 minimum; cost rises with complexity of corporate structure.
  
  The above prices are conditional upon the client's chosen entity name(s) being available and upon the client not requiring significant explanation of incorporation process
  
  
  
• Extra-provincial registration of non-B.C. corporation $700
• Annual fee for acting as registered and records office of B.C. company, including annual maintenance $225
• Annual fee for acting as registered and records office of federal corporation, including annual maintenance $225
• Annual fee for acting as registered and records office of non-B.C. corporation extra-provincially registered in B.C. (federal or other), including annual maintenance $225