Hiring a lawyer in Calgary is always your best line of defence in most legal situations. From a simple real estate question to criminal charges, a lawyer will put to use their best capabilities within the law to ensure you are treated with fairness and equality, having your best interests met as much as possible.
Lawyers in Calgary have different areas of practice in which they are most versed, and choosing the best match for your situation will ensure that you are bringing the most out of the potential of your lawyer. In the next paragraphs, we will look into the six main types of lawyers that you might need.
Real Estate Lawyer
Calgary Real Estate lawyers are sometimes also called Conveyancers, this professional can support you in selling, purchasing or refinancing a property. Having a real estate lawyer with you throughout any of those situations can ease the whole process.
A Real Estate Lawyer can support you in different ways, and for a multitude of ends. If you are looking to buy a property, your lawyer will be the one responsible to review all documentation—such as the Purchase Agreement, Certificate of Title and Real Property Report—, completing your mortgage requirements to support your funding and ensuring a punctual closing of transactions.
If you are selling real estate, your lawyer will be responsible for completing all relevant paperwork, providing reports of adjustments in property taxes, condominium fees or homeowner association dues, and identifying and taking responsibility for matters relating to the property, such as dealing with mortgage and working with you to get the best closing as well.
There is also the chance that you are looking into refinancing. In this case, having a legal team with you will help you review and prepare the documentation to present it to the financial institution. Lawyers are equipped with the knowledge of what to show and say when seeking refinancing, so you do not need to stress about it.
Family Lawyer
A family lawyer Calgary can support you with different family matters. The most common are divorce, child custody, child and spousal support, common law certification and separation, marriage and much more.
Such matters are usually emotion-heavy and can lead to great stress. Having a good legal team assisting you while filing for divorce or fighting for the custody of your children can be life-saving. A Family Lawyer can support you in those times and make the whole process much easier for all parties involved and may help in achieving a fair and satisfying result.
This area of practice is delicate, and it takes great knowledge from professionals to be able to handle their cases properly and respectfully. You should never try to advocate for yourself in a family matter, as your judgement can be blinded by your emotions and you may not act in favour of your best interests—or worse, the best interests of the children involved.
Corporate Lawyer
A corporate lawyer Calgary will represent a client and help them understand their rights, responsibilities, and duties as a company. When hired to represent a business, lawyers will defend the entity as a whole rather than trying to help each of the business partners individually since, under the law, an incorporated company can be treated as a unit, being separate from its shareholders.
The corporate lawyer will ensure that the company is meeting the necessary requirements to keep operating. What that means is that the corporation is responsible for keeping track and complying with an expressive number of laws and regulations, as well as internal policies, and it is the legal team’s duty to guarantee that their client is doing everything it is supposed to.
Corporate lawyers have a wide range of responsibilities which can vary from reviewing, drafting and negotiating contracts and other legally-binding documents in the name of the company to merging and the acquisition of other companies. They will even support the company in finding funding – private or public – to help the growth of the company. So, if you are a business owner, you may want to contact a corporate lawyer.
Personal Injury Lawyer
Dealing with a personal injury is always an overwhelming and difficult time. Because the nature of each injury changes from case to case, having a personal injury lawyer Calgary with you can make the whole process much easier, as you can focus on recovering while your legal team works in your best interests.
If you have suffered an injury at no fault of your own, you may eligible for compensation for the pain, suffering and financial losses. The first thing you should seek is medical care, no matter how small the accident may seem, and keep track of all medical visits, medication needed, and anything else that can support your lawyer in your claims, such as expert assessments and eyewitness reports.
In Alberta, there are time limits for filing a personal injury claim—that is, you will have to act quickly to take legal action instead of waiting for months or years to pass, even if you are still recovering. With that in mind, consulting a personal injury lawyer in Calgary as soon as possible is your best option to have any compensation for what has been done to you.
A personal injury lawyer will help you negotiate with insurance companies and fight for your rights so you can have access to all of the support you deserve. In most cases, a personal injury lawyer will help you settle an agreement for your claim without the need for litigation, that is, without the need to go through long court processes.
Criminal Lawyer
Criminal offences and criminal charges are very serious and, most of the time will become very complex in a short time. A Calgary criminal lawyer will help make sure you are being treated fairly and that all your rights are being respected.
Your legal team can represent you in court and develop a defence for your case to the best abilities under the law. For that, you need criminal lawyers who are experts in the type of charges that you are facing.
A criminal lawyer in Calgary can interview witnesses, research your case and every law and past decisions that may apply to it, develop a strategy for defence, negotiate and bargain lesser charges, file them or argue against appeals and motions, and much more.
This area of practice can be very overwhelming as not all clients will understand criminal court procedures. A criminal lawyer will ensure all steps and requirements are being met to better create a case for you and, hopefully, get you out of a terrible situation.
Employment Lawyer
An employment lawyer Calgary can either represent the employee or the employer in all legal proceedings regarding their rights and responsibilities in the workplace. They can perform several operations on your behalf, and it is always best to consult with a lawyer about your case, but the most common causes people seek legal representation are Severance Pay claims, Wrongful Dismissal, Termination Without a Cause, Harassment and Discrimination, etc.
An employment lawyer in Calgary will help assess your case and come up with the best possible defence for specific situations and take legal action so your rights are always protected.
It is important to note the difference between an Employment Lawyer and a Labour Lawyer. An Employment Lawyer only works with non-unionized workplaces, while Labour Lawyers only work with unionized workplaces.
For all the legal issues you may face throughout life, there is always an expert lawyer ready to help you. These six types are only the most common areas of practice that people seek, and they can do much more for you than would fit in an article. It is always a good idea to call a lawyer in case of need.