Frequently Asked Questions

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Our Core Philosophy

Resolutions with Integrity

Our Core Mission

Informed Choice and objective decision making

Visiting Smith & Little LLP

Lot 54 (Zone 9054) Centennial Parkade

Rates (GST Included)
Daytime Mon – Fri (06:00 – 18:00) $3.25 per 1/2 hour to maximum of $23.00 (Minimum purchase $3.25)

Manulife – Lot #470

Rates
Hourly: $8 per hour / Daily: $23 early bird enter before 9 am / $28 max after 9 am / Rates expire 6pm

6th and 7th Street SW Station

Our office is right beside an LRT platform in the downtown free-fare zone. If you are travelling east, you will get off at 6th Street SW Station. If you are travelling west, you will get off at 7th Street SW Station.

We are open Tuesdays to Fridays from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.

Our office is closed on Mondays. We are committed to providing excellent client service so both lawyers work on Mondays but use this time to focus on our intensive tasks that require our full attention.

We are closed on all statutory holidays.

We do not schedule appointments outside of our office hours at this time. We are constantly reviewing and assessing our practices to ensure we are as available as possible to our clients while attempting to have a work-life balance for ourselves. So far, our clients are able to accommodate meeting during the regular work week.

Yes.

Yes. There are washrooms in the lobby on the 24th floor outside of our office suite. You will need to ask our staff for the washroom codes.

Our office facilities are not child-friendly.

We encourage our clients to carefully consider their childcare arrangements when booking appointments with us. For clients with school aged children it is often best to plan to see us during school hours.

Our staff cannot provide childcare services.

In addition, it can be very stressful for children to visit a lawyer’s office, especially if the nature of your matter involves your children. We will not openly discuss these types of legal matters with non-infant children in the room.

We understand that your legal matter can be very stressful and overwhelming. Some clients prefer to have another trusted adult attend meetings with them in order to: offer them emotional support, remember or take notes of important information/advice discussed with the lawyer, or make sure they have not forgotten to mention any key details.

Our clients may ask these other adults to attend at their appointments. However, in some situations having another person in your meeting can affect the solicitor-client privilege that you are entitled to. If you wish to have another person attend with you at your meetings, one of the lawyers will always privately discuss this issue with you at your first appointment prior to allowing others to join the meeting.

We can only accept instructions to take steps on your matter from you, the client. We will not accept instructions from your mother/best friend/new partner even if they attend at all meetings with you.

All meetings are by appointment only.

  1. Your photo ID
  2. Any court documents you may have regarding your matter
  3. Any contract you have regarding your matter, such as prenuptial agreement, separation agreement, business contract
  4. Information about any upcoming court dates

Contacting Smith & Little LLP

403 999 1650 (click or tap to make a call)

The lawyers do not have direct numbers.

Main office:
Suite 2410, 645 7th Avenue SW, Calgary, AB T2P 4G8

For legal matters: legal@smithandlittle.ca

For all other matters including invitations, networking, mentorship: ea@smithandlittle.ca

If you are a new or potential client please contact us by phone so we can get all of the pertinent details about your situation.

If you are a self-represented party and we are the lawyers for the opposing party, please send us an email. It is our policy to have all communication with self-represented parties in writing.

If you are an existing client, another law firm, or have a simple question, email or phone during regular business hours are both great ways to reach us.

Please send us an email. We have finally taken the big step of unplugging the old fax machine. Of course since we are modern lawyers we always had “e-fax” which is just a service that allows email to talk to fax machines. We don’t have that service anymore and the sky did not fall. Please send us an email or give us a call if you are trying to reach us.

No, really, please send us an email.

We are a modern forward thinking law firm. Faxes are inefficient and produce poor quality documents that are hard to read and sometimes cut-off or incomplete. We do not have a fax machine or fax number.

We accept service by email for all court files on which we are the lawyer of record.

Please send us your letter by email. We will not deny that you have sent us a letter. We do not practice law that way. If you are a law firm and have sent us something that is very important and urgent, we have not responded and you expected we would have and you are concerned about this issue, we invite you to phone our office to make sure we received your letter.

The lawyers and staff do not have voicemail boxes. We have one general voicemail box and we strive to have a staff member answer all calls during business hours. Most calls should only go to voicemail outside of business hours.

One of our defining principles is that we practice law differently. We try to work as efficiently as possible in order to eliminate or reduce the time spent on routine tasks that do not add value for our clients. This allows us to focus our time on tasks that are highly valued by our clients such as:

  1. Meeting with clients
  2. Attending court/mediation for or with clients
  3. Drafting complex legal documents
  4. Negotiating with other lawyers on behalf of our clients
  5. Discussing legal strategy for our clients’ matters

The problems we have observed with individual voicemail boxes are:

  1. The lawyer has a very busy day and the voicemail sits unchecked for hours while the lawyer is away from their desk / the lawyer doesn’t see the voicemail blinking on their phone for hours or until the next day.
  2. The voicemail lacks sufficient detail to allow the lawyer to prepare an appropriate response resulting in a game of phone tag where the lawyer tries to get the missing information from the caller, then has to schedule a time to speak with the caller again later to answer the question after the lawyer has had time to consider the question or perform research.
  3. The caller is seeking some basic or simple information or a document which request can be completed easily by the staff or another lawyer in the office.

By speaking with and providing a detailed message to our highly trained telephone staff, your message will be answered more quickly and more efficiently than by leaving a voicemail for a specific lawyer. Not only will our staff generally obtain all information the lawyer requires to carefully consider your question on the first call, but they can best manage the workflow in the office to ensure your message is seen by a lawyer in a priority manner.

All of our staff are given extensive training on confidentiality. We trust that our staff will keep your information confidential. It is extremely difficult if not impossible for us to give you outstanding service and respond to your questions and concerns in a timely fashion if you do not leave detailed messages with our staff and answer any follow up questions they may have. This information allows us to carefully consider your inquiry and perform research or consult your documents if necessary in order to formulate a complete response to your concern prior to returning your call.

Absolutely! We meet with and speak with existing clients, prospective clients, and other callers almost every day.

We admit that it can be difficult to get Christine or Kelly on the phone if you just happen to call our office. This is because we have a very busy practice and we are usually in the middle of activities that are highly valued by our clients such as:

  1. Meeting with clients/speaking on the phone with clients.
  2. Attending court/mediation for or with clients.
  3. Drafting complex legal documents.
  4. Negotiating with other lawyers on behalf of our clients.
  5. Discussing legal strategy for our clients’ matters.

We do our utmost to return messages as soon as possible and usually within 1 business day. If you read our testimonials and reviews you will see that our current and former clients do not find us difficult to reach or unavailable. Once our clients come to understand the Smith & Little difference and the way our office functions they appreciate our efficient workflows. Leaving a detailed message and setting a time when we will phone you back or meet with you also has the advantage of allowing us to carefully consider your question and perform research or review your file where necessary to ensure that we have a detailed response to your concern prior to returning your call.

Our centralized email and telephone system allows us to most efficiently control the workflow within our office. Part of the Smith & Little difference is that you get two lawyers for the price of one. Christine and Kelly work together on every file and have the unique ability to pick up where the other has left off. What this means is that our clients and other lawyers can speak with or correspond with either of the lawyers interchangeably. By having one centralized place where all calls and messages are received, we can divide our workflow or redirect messages while one of us has an extended absence due to vacation, illness, or simply a long trial, mediation, or other out of the office meeting. Our clients and other callers don’t need to worry about knowing the details of our schedules or which lawyer is available at any given time; we manage all of that within our office and the result is that messages and letters get answered more quickly and by the team member with the best ability to answer them.

Smith & Little LLP Client Experience

All of our staff are given extensive training on confidentiality. We trust that our staff will keep your information confidential. It is extremely difficult if not impossible for us to give you outstanding service and respond to your questions and concerns in a timely fashion if you do not leave detailed messages with our staff and answer any follow up questions they may have. This information allows us to carefully consider your inquiry and perform research or consult your documents if necessary in order to formulate a complete response to your concern prior to returning your call.

While our clients will have extensive contact with our staff, it is important for clients to understand that every step taken by our staff right down to the messages to be conveyed by telephone to the client are directed by either Christine Shepherd or Kelly Elizabeth Smith.

We prefer to have our staff communicate simple messages or work with you to obtain simple information or documents. Having efficient workflow in the office allows the lawyers to focus our time on tasks that are highly valued by our clients such as:

  1. Meeting with clients
  2. Attending court/mediation for or with clients
  3. Drafting complex legal documents
  4. Negotiating with other lawyers on behalf of our clients
  5. Discussing legal strategy for our clients’ matters

Clients also appreciate the cost-savings benefits from these efficient workflow arrangements on their legal bills.

We take solicitor-client privilege very seriously; this means that we will not share any information with respect to our clients’ legal matters with anyone who calls, even those who say they have your permission. We will only share information about you or your legal matter with your permission.

Unfortunately, like many legal questions, the length of time a divorce takes depends on the circumstances at play. In the usual course, parties will have to be separated for at least one year. Once the one-year separation period has elapsed then we will prepare what is called a “Desk Divorce Package”. The materials in the Desk Divorce Package will be submitted to the courthouse for judicial review. The package includes the Request for Divorce, this is the document telling the court that the parties are ready to proceed with divorce, the Affidavit of Applicant, being the sworn written evidence proving the particulars of the marriage and the separation. There is also a document called the Divorce Judgment. The Divorce Judgment is the Court Order that will legally end your marriage. It will often set out particulars with respect to parenting, child support and spousal support if applicable. The Justice will review all of the documents together and will sign the Divorce Judgment if everything is in order. It currently takes approximately 2 to 3 months to have the Divorce Judgment returned by the courthouse. After the Divorce Judgment is signed, we must wait a period of 31 days after which time we can obtain the Certificate of Divorce. The Certificate is the document required should someone wish to remarry or otherwise be in a position where they have to prove their divorce for any reason.

There is no specific dress code for people attending Court however it is our advice that one should dress as though you were going to a professional job interview.

You can find your courtroom by checking the screens at the courthouse. Once you pass through the airport-like security, there are large screens behind the security desk. If your matter is in the Alberta Court of Justice, look to the blue screens on the left and find your last name or the name of the opposing party. Beside your name the courtroom will be listed. If your matters in the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, your name will be shown on the red screens to the right. If you cannot see your name on those screens there is a kiosk located to the right of the screen and on every floor of the courthouse and you can type your name into the kiosk which will then show you the courtroom you are scheduled to be in.

Financial Matters

Email money transfer, debit card in person, credit card in person, credit card by phone, bank draft, money order, and business cheques for corporate clients. Due to law society rules, we can only accept a limited amount of cash. We do not accept personal cheques.

Our preferred method of payment is email money transfer.

We accept all major credit cards including Visa, MasterCard and AMEX.

A retainer is money provided up front by the client to secure payment of the lawyer’s services. The retainer is held in the lawyer’s trust account until services are performed and a bill has been sent to the client. The money remains the property of the client while it is held in the lawyer’s trust account subject to the lawyer’s entitlement to be fairly compensated for services already rendered. Any money that remains in the lawyer’s trust account when the client’s matter is closed is returned to the client.

A lawyer’s trust account in Alberta is subject to extensive reporting and auditing requirements monitored by The Law Society of Alberta.

No. Unfortunately money to be disbursed from our trust account is by cheque only. We will generally ask you if you prefer to stop by to pick up your cheque or have it mailed to you.

Our retainers vary on a case-by-case basis. The factors which will influence the amount of retainer required are: the legal issues involved, the complexity of your case, the services we anticipate your matter will require, and the timing and nature of any upcoming court dates.

After we have spoken with you and obtained sufficient details to determine an appropriate retainer in your case, we will discuss the amount with you prior to you making any decision about hiring us.

No.

Not necessarily. We will discuss this with you in the particular context of your case during our initial discussions.

Generally if you are requesting our services with respect to one or two particular issues which will be happening soon, we will request a retainer which will cover all of your anticipated legal fees. A good example of this is a client who wants to retain us to represent them in a trial which will be happening in two months.

If your matter is of a more ongoing nature, we will generally request a retainer that will cover your legal fees for the first 2 – 4 months and which will allow us to make a good start on your file and see where it might be headed. After that, we will periodically request that you top up your retainer as funds are used to cover legal fees incurred.

Yes. You can make any private arrangements you wish to pay your retainer. We will accept payment and credit cards from third parties on your behalf but the third party must sign a separate contract with us before we can accept payment from them. For that reason, it is our preference that the third party lend money directly to the client and the client pay us from their own bank account or credit card where possible.

We will only ever report to you, the client about your matter.

We are not responsible for, and will not become involved with, any repayment arrangements you make with a third party.

We are sympathetic to clients in these types of situations. We will sometimes take on these types of arrangements and we will work with the client to work out security for payment of our legal fees in a mutually satisfactory manner. For any such arrangements, it is necessary for the client to provide a retainer to cover, at a bare minimum, our out of pocket expenses. However, we are extremely limited in the number of files of this nature we can take on at any one time. Generally it will not be possible to accept these types of files.

We never work on a contingency basis and generally do not accept new legal aid retainers.

Our Team

About Smith & Little LLP

Christine and Kelly are proud to work together in a true partnership and offer the benefit of two minds to all of our clients. We are strongly of the view that two minds are better than one and if a partnership is able to capitalize on the strengths of each individual partner there will be huge advantages flowing to the client. Having spent our first years as lawyers figuring out what pieces of the job we each enjoy the best, we determined that there were certain tasks we enjoyed more than others. Luckily for us our strengths are complementary and while we are able to trade off and step in for each other when required, we like to each perform the tasks we enjoy the most as often as possible.

Christine N Little Shepherd

Christine N. (Little) Shepherd

Family law lawyer with over ten years of experience helping people. I’m now shifting my focus to mediation because I believe deeply in the power of respectful, practical resolutions.

Kelly Elizabeth Smith

Kelly Elizabeth Smith

I am a straight shooter. I pride myself on telling it like it is and achieving practical and no non-sense results for our clients and as a mediator and arbitrator.