Originally Posted by Shareholder
Lawyers are not supposed to charge for this service, even a nominal $20. It is part of their community commitment by law societies, as officers of the court. Only commercial Notary Publics can legitimately charge for this service as this is part of their business, and these folks are generally not admitted-to-the-bar lawyers, but rather are para-legals or less.
Now let's not get carried away. What you have set out above is patently not the case at all. There's a huge difference between a sole practitioner scrambling to make ends meet in a small shopping centre practice in Etobicoke for instance and the people you envy on Bay Street (or in much better example, on Jasper Avenue
).
Yes, I can afford to do it out of professional courtesy. Many others, particularly newly-admitted lawyers cannot.
Additionally, it depends on the document or documents as well as what type of notarization is required. Based on my experience and reading
khkchan's original post it would appear that it is a form of Declaration or Affidavit that is required as opposed to for instance, the Certificate of Notary Public required under the Alberta
Guarantees Acknowledgment Act or the Saskatchewan
Farm Security Act both of which require the Notary to certify that the attached document was understood by the signator. Have you ever signed a guarantee and, if so, did you understand all 9,000
paragraphs?
Time is money for everyone including lawyers. I don't make my living notarizing or commissioning documents and I can usually afford the time. Others can't or won't.
P.S. Since I graduated from U of T Law School I'm about as close as many of you will ever get to a
real Bay Street lawyer!!
