Civil Litigation Lawyers: directory of firms

Ontario's Small Claims Court handles claims up to a limit set by regulation, which rose on October 1, 2025. It takes claims for money owed — unpaid goods and services, loans, rent, cheques returned unpaid — and claims for damages, including property damage, personal injuries and breach of contract. A claimant can still use it for a larger dispute by giving up the excess above the limit. The province states that you do not need a lawyer or a paralegal to sue there, and that once a claim is served the defendant has 20 days to respond.

Above that limit, or where the remedy sought is something other than money, a claim belongs in the Superior Court of Justice and runs under the Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court publishes those rules with their forms, along with provincial practice directions for civil matters and separate regional practice directions for each of its eight regions, so part of a litigation lawyer's job is knowing which local requirements apply where the case will be heard.

The choice is not only about size. A simpler forum is faster and cheaper to run but offers narrower procedure, while the Superior Court allows fuller document discovery and examinations. Ask a lawyer to compare the two for your facts before a claim is issued, because moving later is rarely free.

Litigation is usually billed hourly against a retainer that is topped up as the file moves, because neither side controls how the other behaves. Fixed fees appear for discrete steps such as a demand letter or a single motion, and contingency arrangements are available for some kinds of claims in provinces whose law society permits them. Disbursements — filing, service, transcripts, mediators, experts — are billed on top and can become the larger part of a small file.

Two questions are worth settling at the outset. Ask how costs work in the court where your case would be heard and what exposure you would carry if the claim failed, and ask for a staged estimate rather than a single number, so the decision to continue can be taken again at each stage instead of once at the start.

Lawyers are licensed province by province. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada is the national association of the 14 law societies that the provinces and territories have mandated to regulate the profession in the public interest; each one keeps a public register. A directory search is the quickest check available to a client: the Law Society of British Columbia's directory shows current practice status, contact details, practice restrictions, discipline history and current regulatory proceedings.

Representation rights are not identical everywhere or in every forum. Ontario's guidance notes that a person suing in Small Claims Court is not required to hire a lawyer or a paralegal, which is a different point from who is permitted to appear for someone else in a given court. If you are considering a representative who is not a lawyer, confirm with the regulator in your province what that person is licensed to do before you retain them.

Civil litigation is listed on LokalMatch as a directory only. We publish the firm's own description and its contact details so you can approach it yourself; no request is sold to anyone, and no firm pays to be presented as a better answer than another.

We also do not assess cases. Whether a claim is strong, which court it belongs in and what it is likely to cost are questions for a licensed lawyer who has read the documents, not for a listing page.