Merchant Disputes Assertions In MacLean’s Article
Friday, September 08, 2006 at 15:33
A lawyer representing several thousand residential school survivors is denying claims by a national magazine that a legal fight between his firm and the government is holding up the compensation process.
In this week’s edition of MacLean’s magazine, an 8-page story indicates the Merchant Law Group is embroiled in a battle with the federal government over how much money it should receive for representing 10,000 school survivors.
The story suggests the fight could derail the entire process and Ottawa is questioning the firm’s accounting methods, work ethic and client count.
Merchant denies the claim, saying there’s no actual suggestion by the courts he is holding up anything.
Merchant acknowledges his firm is getting $40 million from Ottawa for the claims process, but he insists much of the work he is doing is for free.
He also says the reason why there are questions over which clients are actually his is because some of them have approached other lawyers over the years.