$510M in lawyers’ fees in treaty case unreasonable, judge says

The Ontario judge ruled the $510 million in lawyer fees for the treaty case was unreasonable and ordered it scaled back to $23 million.

An Ontario court judge has ruled a $510 million legal fee for lawyers who worked on a First Nations treaty rights case was unreasonable — and has ordered the fee scaled back to $23 million.

“A lawyer’s professional retainer is not a lottery ticket offering a bonus prize of generational wealth to the lawyers if the clients hit the jackpot and win a mega-award,” Justice Fred Myers wrote in his decision released Tuesday.

The Robinson Huron Treaty settlement, reached in 2023, sought to remedy unpaid treaty annuities for 21 First Nations.

It resulted in a $10 billion settlement. Five per cent of that sum went to the lawyers from Nahwegahbow Corbiere Genoodmagejig/Barristers & Solicitors who argued the case on behalf of the First Nations.

The First Nations said the fact that the $4-per-person annuity had not increased since 1874 breached the treaty, because resource extraction projects operating on their land had been generating profits that far exceeded what their members received.

Fifteen of those First Nations received less in the settlement than the lawyers working on their behalf did, the judge noted.

Garden River First Nation and Atikameksheng Anishnawbek launched a court application against the lawyers’ fees last year, saying they were unreasonable and that the lawyers were pressuring them not to pursue independent reviews of the payment.

The other 19 First Nations involved in the case did not explicitly support the application to the court.