Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Timeliness of the clients’ request for a registrar’s order to assess their lawyer’s accounts under section 3 of the Solicitors Act.
• Determination of when the disputed final accounts were legally “received” by the clients for purposes of triggering the 30-day assessment window.
• Evidentiary dispute over whether the September 27, 2024 email from the law firm actually delivered the accounts or brought them to the clients’ attention.
• Limitation of a section 3 assessment to specific accounts (2694 and 2695) and confirmation that it does not open up the validity of the retainer or other bills.
• Distinction between the narrower section 3 process and the broader section 4 application route, including the missed opportunity to use section 4 within 12 months.
• Proportionality and reasonableness of litigation conduct by both sides, culminating in a costs award of $4,000 against the law firm.

Background and retainer relationship
The case arises out of a solicitor–client fee dispute between Lambrini and Zoran Kutlarovski, as applicants, and their former law firm, Angela Assuras Professional Corporation. The firm, led by Ms. Angela Assuras, had represented the Kutlarovskis under a retainer that later generated several legal accounts, including two final bills that became the focus of this motion. The retainer itself was not placed in dispute for the purposes of the registrar’s order that the clients obtained under section 3 of the Solicitors Act. Instead, the clients pursued a narrow statutory process to have particular accounts assessed.

Registrar’s order for assessment under section 3
In December 2024, the clients sought and obtained an “order for assessment” from the Registrar under section 3 of the Solicitors Act. That provision allows the Registrar to order an assessment only when three preconditions are met: first, the retainer is not in dispute; second, the person requesting the assessment does not assert “special circumstances”; and third, the request is made within 30 days of the accounts being received. On the face of the form completed by the clients, the first two conditions were satisfied: there was no challenge to the existence or validity of the retainer, and no claim of special circumstances. The motion before the Superior Court therefore narrowed to a single central question: whether the clients had requested the assessment within 30 days of receiving the particular accounts they wanted assessed.

Competing evidence on when the accounts were received
The dispute turned on when the two final accounts (numbers 2694 and 2695) were actually received by the clients. It was common ground that by November 18, 2024 the clients had in fact received those accounts, and that they then sought the registrar’s order for assessment within 30 days of that date. However, the law firm’s position was that the accounts had already been sent much earlier. In her affidavit, Ms. Assuras stated that she first emailed the accounts to Mr. Kutlarovski on September 27, 2024 as attachments to an email, and then re-sent them at the clients’ request in November 2024. In response, Mr. Kutlarovski swore that he did not receive the accounts in September, which prompted a friend to follow up with Ms. Assuras, eventually leading to the November transmission when the final bills were clearly provided. The evidentiary record included the September 27 emails. Justice McSweeney noted that, while these emails had subject lines that referenced the file name, there was no indication in the “Re:” line that they attached the final accounts, and it was unclear from the record whether any accounts were in fact attached. There was also no textual prompt such as “Final account” or “account attached” to alert the clients that the bills were enclosed.

Finding on “receipt” and the 30-day limitation
On a balance of probabilities, the Court found that the disputed accounts did not truly come to the clients’ attention until they were sent or re-sent in November 2024. The judge accepted that, whether or not an attachment technically accompanied the September email, that message did not alert the clients that their final bills had arrived and was not reviewed as such. The Court therefore held that the accounts were “received” for the purposes of the Solicitors Act when Ms. Assuras communicated them in response to follow-up queries, with November 18, 2024 fixed as the operative date. Using that date as the starting point, the clients’ request for a registrar’s order was found to be made within the prescribed 30-day period. As a result, the registrar’s December 18, 2024 order for assessment was valid, and the law firm’s attempt to set it aside for lateness failed.

Scope of assessment and statutory framework (sections 3 and 4)
Although there was no insurance or commercial policy at issue, the decision carefully delineates the governing statutory framework in the Solicitors Act, which functions much like a set of “terms” defining what can and cannot be done under different assessment routes. Under section 3, the assessment is narrowly confined: it applies only to the specific accounts identified—in this case, accounts 2694 and 2695 appended to the registrar’s order. The Court underscored that the clients may not use the section 3 process to challenge other accounts rendered by Ms. Assuras, nor may they use it to attack the retainer agreement itself. Instead, the retainer stands as the contractual framework within which the two disputed accounts will be evaluated, and it is relevant only to the extent necessary to assess the reasonableness of the fees charged under that retainer. By contrast, a broader challenge to the retainer or to a wider range of accounts would have required an originating application under section 4 of the Act, to be brought within 12 months. The clients did not pursue that route within the statutory window. Justice McSweeney referred counsel to a recent Divisional Court decision, Wong v. Dale, to help distinguish the narrower section 3 mechanism from the more expansive section 4 process and to clarify the different entitlements and remedies each pathway provides.

Costs, proportionality, and ultimate outcome
After dismissing the law firm’s motion to set aside the registrar’s assessment order, the Court turned to costs. Both parties had sought costs if successful. The Court scrutinized the conduct of each side. On the clients’ side, the judge noted that they had not clearly communicated their concerns about specific entries or dollar amounts in the final accounts, nor had they given Ms. Assuras detail about which parts of the work they disputed and why. Notably, one of the accounts already included a substantial write-down—approximately $10,000, nearly a 50 per cent reduction—described as a “courtesy discount,” which suggested some effort by the firm to moderate its billing. The clients also booked the assessment without notifying the law firm, thereby foreclosing an early, potentially less costly settlement discussion and driving the dispute into a formal court-based process. On the law firm’s side, the Court expressed puzzlement that, once Ms. Assuras learned in July 2025 that an assessment hearing over about $23,000 in billings was set for September 2025, she chose to bring a motion to set aside the registrar’s order and incurred over $22,000 in legal costs, instead of simply appearing at the scheduled assessment and defending her bills. This strategic choice was seen as inconsistent with proportionality and efficiency, given that the assessment hearing was only slightly delayed by her calculation and would have been the natural forum to resolve the billing dispute. Applying Rule 57, appellate guidance on civil costs, and the principles of proportionality and settlement promotion, Justice McSweeney fixed a modest but real costs award. The motion was dismissed, the assessment ordered on December 18, 2024 was directed to proceed forthwith, and Ms. Assuras’s firm was ordered to pay $4,000 in costs to the Kutlarovski applicants within 90 days. In practical terms, the successful party was the applicants, Lambrini and Zoran Kutlarovski, and the total monetary amount ordered in their favour in this decision was $4,000 in costs, with no other damages or monetary awards determined at this stage.