Employment lawyers in Vancouver

An employment standards complaint must be filed within six months of your last day of work. The BC Human Rights Tribunal has a one-year time limit. BC's basic limitation period for a court claim, including wrongful dismissal, is two years. If your employer is federally regulated (a bank, airline or telecom company, for example), an unjust dismissal complaint under the Canada Labour Code must be filed within 90 days.

The Employment Standards Act minimum is one week's notice or pay after three months, two weeks after 12 months and three weeks after three years, plus one more week for each additional year to a maximum of eight weeks. Unless your contract validly limits you to those minimums, a court may award more based on your age, role, length of service and how long it should take to find similar work.

Employment standards complaints go to the Employment Standards Branch and human rights complaints to the BC Human Rights Tribunal. Lawsuits up to $35,000 can go to the Provincial Court's small claims division, and larger claims to the Supreme Court — for Vancouver, see the court list on our Vancouver page.

To practise law in British Columbia a lawyer must be a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. You can look up any lawyer in the Law Society's public Lawyer Directory, which shows their practising status and any discipline history. Each lawyer on these pages was checked in that directory before being listed, but people move firms, so check again before you hire. Complaints about a lawyer go to the Law Society.