On May 25, 2010, Legal Aid Alberta (LAA) announced significant changes to our interim billing policy.

Due to overwhelming feedback from the Roster, we are reversing our decision to implement the new billing policy. This reversal is effective immediately.

We can assure you that the issue at hand is not whether your accounts will be paid, but when. Our agreement with the government guarantees that lawyer accounts will be paid no matter what. What we need the Roster to understand is that the annual budget approved by Alberta Justice contains a budgeted amount for Private Bar expenditures. This amount is calculated based on a formula that uses certificate issuance and historical data to estimate the dollar amount of the accounts that will be submitted in a given year.  Because of the increased use of on-line billing (e-Bill) the amount of interim accounts submitted has increased beyond what we have historically forecasted, which has increased the amount of money that LAA is expending each month. Our expenditures over the last 2 months has greatly exceeded the year-to-date budgeted amount. Our recent action in implementing a new billing policy arose from our need to manage our resources within the budgeted amount.

The choice to reverse this decision does not change the fact that LAA needs to revisit changes to the interim billing process in order to remain sustainable.  However, please be assured that future changes will come with appropriate notice and we will seek the views of the Roster in advance of implementing such changes. We are in on-going talks with the government regarding private bar expenses.

We apologize for any inconvenience or distress we may have caused. 

Decisions on Extensions/Special Disbursements

Also due to recent changes to some of our services, we understand your frustration with the current delay in decisions on extension and special disbursements. We have drawn from our existing staff resources and put a new Certificate Management team in place that is hard at work on the current backlog.

Certificate Management (CM) handles the administration of all certificate-related issues (including new certificates, extensions, special disbursements and extra tariff items). They focus on efficiently tracking and billing certificate time and expenses.

The CM Team will successfully work within its limited resources (funding, staffing, time) and continue to operate on a set of simplified processes designed to lower costs and maintain a well-supported Roster. The CM Team will also continually adapt to meet the evolving needs of LAA (e.g. the Legal Services Centre model).

To expedite the decision process the CM team would like to recommend that you provide a description in the subject line of the email or fax about the issue that you need assistance with when submitting any requests.

The contact information for the CM team is:    

EMAIL: decisionrequired@legalaid.ab.ca

FAX: (780) 415-2618, Attn: Decision Required