A lot of people are concerned about what happens when they contact an IRP lawyer.
There is only a short time after you receive an IRP for you to get legal advice, for your lawyer to file the dispute, and to prepare your defence. Contacting an IRP lawyer as soon as possible can maximize those timelines.
So what can you expect when you contact an IRP lawyer?
A lot of lawyers prefer to conduct business over the telephone. They want to spend time talking to you about your personal circumstances, the reasons why you need your license, and the concerns you have about how the IRP will affect your future. While we think it would be great to get to know our clients better in this respect, the truth is that we have so much to do in so little time that it is not practical.
After all, while you may need to keep your license to keep your job, the adjudicator in your IRP hearing is not allowed to consider that. It does not help you, and it does not help your lawyer fight your IRP case successfully. We try to remain focused on the goal: getting the win and getting you back on the road as soon as possible.
A unique feature of IRP hearings is that they are conducted by telephone. When you hire an IRP lawyer, you are hiring someone who is going to be on the telephone arguing these cases. And, as they say, practice makes perfect. Experienced IRP lawyers are often conducting several hearings a day, meaning that they spend most of the day on the telephone making complicated legal and factual submissions to adjudicators.
An IRP lawyer who has a lot of time to talk to you on the phone may be less experienced and is doing fewer hearings. They may not focus on the issues as quickly as a more experienced IRP lawyer.
But that does not mean that your IRP lawyer does not want to hear from you. When we take on an IRP case, we are in constant written communication with our clients. After initially retaining our firm, you can expect to receive a package of material to start the process and to get you started on gathering as much evidence in your possession as you can get to us. You will also receive email updates from your IRP lawyer at every stage of your case, in addition to telephone contact.
Having your side of the story and information from you in writing is important to us. We find that phone calls are often less helpful for your case. When you put your information in writing and we put our instructions to you in writing, they can be referred to again and again. There is no risk of forgetting an important detail because it is all right there.
In most IRP cases, we are also working hard to get everything we need ready for the hearing. Because we also conduct judicial reviews in BC Supreme Court, we make submissions in writing on any outstanding issues, or issues that we do not believe are as strong as your main arguments but may still have value. We do those in writing, which takes time to prepare. We do this because we want to preserve every angle of argument and defence in your case as possible.
As IRP lawyers, we have a good handle on what types of issues are before the court. This is because we are at the forefront of many of the major challenges. Kyla Lee in our office has been involved in numerous constitutional challenges to the IRP scheme and has conducted more judicial reviews of IRP decisions than any other lawyer. On any given day, she may be doing a BC Supreme Court judicial review hearing while conducting IRP hearings before the court and on the court lunch break.
All of this does not leave a lot of time to chat on the phone. But our view is that we can best help you if we are focusing on what we, as IRP lawyers, believe is most likely to get you to win.
You probably know the old saying: if you want something done right, ask a busy person. That is true for IRP lawyers. Because the decisions are not public, doing more of them means that although we spend more time on the phone with adjudicators, we also have a better sense of trends in decision-making and know what evidence to get an address in your case.
Our time is best spent working with you to prepare and gather the evidence, even though it may seem impersonal. We’d love to have time to get to know all our clients better, but we’d much rather see our clients succeed than anything else. We want to remain totally focused on succeeding in your case.
And so when contacting an IRP lawyer, having a written record and good written communication is what is – in our opinion – best practice for your chances of success.