ILA CHECKLISTS

General Checklist for the Giving of Independent Legal Advice

When providing independent legal advice, a checklist provides you with a handy tool to ensure that you are covering all the bases when discussing the underlying transaction and your client's relationship to that transaction. This sample checklist was created by Phil Epstein, Q.C. and is reproduced with his permission.

Using this checklist will allow you to be in a better position to successfully defend a negligence claim in relation to the provision of independent legal advice. As an example, in the recent case of Webb v. Tomlinson, 2006 CanLII 18192 (ON S.C.) a solicitor was able to successfully defend a claim of negligence arising out of the provision of independent legal advice. The solicitor Tomlinson kept detailed notes and used a checklist that was included in a LAWPRO magazine. Justice Belobaba referred both to the notes and the checklist when deciding that the solicitor had taken reasonable steps to explain the nature and consequence of the mortgage that had been signed by plaintiff in that case.

• View the ILA Checklist which is formatted as a precedent for your file.
• Download an Acrobat PDF version of the ILA Checklist (28KB file).