CBC News [Canada]
May 8, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/08/residential-legal-fees.html
Lawyers who have been representing residential school abuse survivors are expected to get the biggest payment ever recorded for a Canadian class action case.
• INDEPTH: Residential school abuse FAQs
A draft copy of the final residential school agreement shows that the federal government will pay $40 million each to a Regina law firm and a national consortium of lawyers.
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| Former NWT premier Stephen Kakfwi isn't happy that lawyers are making so much from the residential school deal. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) |
The legal fee payout is expected to be higher because more than a dozen other lawyers are involved who are not part of the class action lawsuits.
• FROM APRIL 25, 2006: Residential school deal almost final
The aging survivors of the residential school system will get an average of $30,000, the draft copy shows.
About 78,000 aboriginal people are estimated to have attended residential schools, most of them church-run, until the system was dismantled in the 1970s. Many have spoken out about the physical, sexual and emotional abuse they suffered after being removed from their families at a young age.
Payout won't improve lives much: survivor
Stephen Kakfwi, a former residential school student who once served as premier of the Northwest Territories, says the amount of money lawyers will get doesn't compare to the compensation survivors will receive.
"The Department of Indian Affairs and the lawyers and everybody who circle this big pot of money thrive on it and there is no significant improvement on the lives of aboriginal people," he said.
According to the draft copy of the agreement, the Regina-based Merchant Law Group will receive half of the $80 million in legal fees the federal government has agreed to pay.
Reached by CBC News, Tony Merchant said his 50-lawyer firm tried to get more from Ottawa during the negotiations.
The Merchant Law Group represents 9,000 survivors, which the firm's website says is half of all those who sought justice by means of the class-action route.
Some lawyers had no income for long time: firm
Merchant said the firm has invested nearly $2 million in this case over the years.
"We've had almost every lawyer in the firm devoted to this project and this battle," he said. "For many of us, we have not drawn income for extended periods of time."
Class action lawyers say the only other payment that comes close to the residential schools case is the payout in the tainted blood affair. Several law firms shared $47 million for obtaining settlements for people infected with Hepatitis C through infected blood products.
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