Legal fee dispute lands lawyer and client in court

A Coquitlam resident is on the hook for $212,952 in legal fees, following a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision.

The dispute followed what client Dongdong Huang characterized as the disastrous result of a previous case.

Huang alleged he transferred about $1.4 million to Peipei Li, as well as her family members and a company she controlled after being duped by false representations of love.

Huang, also a lawyer, got to know lawyer Bruce E. McLeod in the 1980s when the two practised for the same firm. In September 2016, he retained McLeod to help him get back money, property, promised equity and payment for his professional services from Li.

Involving claims of civil fraud, unjust enrichment, conspiracy, breach of contract, and trespass, the 10-day trial eventually stretched to 27 days.

Huang had been seeking $1.2 million, as well as the value of personal and legal services he’d provided.

The court awarded Huang a total of $4,360.

The outcome of the trial was: “disastrous, killing and tortuous,” according to Huang.

McLeod charged Huang $677,250 for legal services.

In seeking a review of accounts, McLeod claimed Huang still owed him $392,231.

Different accounts

Prior to the trial, McLeod wrote that he had “every confidence” in Huang’s case. However, he added that the likelihood of success in litigation tops out at 80 percent.

“There is a human factor in any trial that leads to what I called the ‘judicial perversity’ rule,” McLeod wrote to his client. “While unlikely, the trial judge might see the case completely differently than the lawyers or anyone else expects.”

Following the trial, Huang sent a message to McLeod, writing that the: “many mistakes and errors in the litigation process have tortured me for several years.”

The result was a disappointment, McLeod acknowledged, however it was: “not for want of skill, diligence, time or effort on my part.”

McLeod previously attributed the decision to the judge not finding Huang “credible or reliable” as a witness.

In her decision, Justice Elaine Adair described Huang as having a remarkable memory for details. However, the contrast between what Huang remembered and what he couldn’t made Huang’s, “apparent ability to remember precise details suspicious, and, ultimately, unconvincing,” Adair concluded.

During the review of accounts in B.C. Supreme Court, Huang criticized McLeod’s cross-examination at trial and examination for discovery as not being effective. Huang didn’t tender evidence that supported those assertions, noted associate judge John Bilawich

Interest

Huang and McLeod differed on how much interest should be paid.

In March 2023, Huang informed his lawyer that he was withdrawing from an agreement to pay two percent per month, compounded monthly.

“The so-called contractual rate is oppressive and was done in circumstances that I did not have independent legal advice and with coercion from you,” he wrote.

The terms of the agreement aren’t subject to: “unilateral after-the-fact termination,” McLeod responded.

The parties also disputed whether or not Huang had to pay 26.8 percent yearly interest.

In September 2019, after discovering he didn’t have a signed retainer letter on file, McLeod sent Huang a new copy of the document.

However, Huang deleted a sentence that required him to pay two percent monthly interest compounded monthly and 26.8 percent yearly.

“This effectively left the retainer letter with no internal contract interest rate,” Bilawich determined.

Payment

Prior to the trial, McLeod emphasized that he wouldn’t be able to sustain the level of work needed for a 10-day trial without first being paid.

Huang suggested he could pay McLeod based on his partial ownership of a $1.48 million house in Coquitlam and a $980,000 house in Port Coquitlam, as well as a commercial unit in China and the judgment from the litigation.

However, McLeod couldn’t register the Coquitlam property’s mortgage and, in 2022, Huang transferred his interest in the former family home to his ex-wife as part of the settlement of their family dispute.

“This has effectively put his interest in that property out of the Lawyer’s reach for collection purposes,” Bilawich noted.

Unreasonable fees

McLeod’s total time spent and fees charged were unreasonable, according to Bilawich.

The “poor result” on Huang’s primary claim also warrants some reduction, Bilawich added.

The associate judge decided that a reasonable fee was $380,000, plus approximately $45,000 in taxes and $69,000 in disbursements.

Having already paid $285,018, Huang must pay McLeod additional $212,952, the associate judge decided.

McLeod is entitled to eight percent yearly interest, compounded semi-annually, according to the judgment.