Christensen Law Firm
Automatically compiled listing. Details may contain errors.1 lawyer · Waterloo Region
One of 41 law firms listed in Cambridge, and one of 14 handling Civil Litigation & Dispute Resolution.
About Christensen Law Firm
Christensen Law Firm collects unsecured debts for creditors, and that's the only kind of work it does. From its base in Cambridge, Ontario, it works for banks and other big credit granters, and smaller creditors can get the same contingency-fee collection services the firm provides to its major clients.
Todd Christensen leads the work with an LL.B and an M.B.A., having finished the combined law and MBA program of the Richard Ivey School of Business and Western Law in 1991. Over many years the firm has handled thousands of payouts on writs of seizure and sale of land, and it has pushed for more efficient closings on the real estate deals that pay its clients all or part of what they're owed.
On collection costs, the firm's position is that a debtor who won't pay should bear the expense of collecting, the lawyer's reasonable contingency fee included. Argued that way, trial-level courts generally agreed to hold debtors accountable for the actual legal collection expenses, and the Divisional Court affirmed a ruling on collection expenses in Capital One v. Toogood, 2013 ONSC 5440.
Clients aren't billed by the hour the way a traditional law firm would bill them, and they still get full access to the legal system. At any stage, the firm is open to settling a debt for whatever the client considers reasonable in the circumstances. The fee is owed only if money is recovered: generally 35 percent of what comes in, adjusted for how old and collectable the debt is, with disbursements on top. (Fees as of September 2026.)
History
Todd Christensen opened a first law practice in 1993. The firm went on to partner with ScotiaBank, and that partnership proved the concept.
The firm's law-firm collections process dates to 2003, when Christensen drew on both legal and business expertise to design it and put it into use. Central to it was a mutual-services arrangement with the collection agency Collectrite, whose president, Greg Storey, worked with Christensen to add an agency's efficiencies and investigative tools to the firm's legal process.
Practice areas
Collection before a lawsuit
The collections process opens with a law-firm demand letter, followed by a phone call if the debtor hasn't already called in. A debtor who talks to the firm can get a payment plan, or a reduced settlement if cooperative financial disclosure shows the full amount can't be paid.
Suing and enforcing judgment
When a debtor stays silent or won't pay, the firm picks an enforcement route, gets the client's instructions, then sues, obtains judgment and enforces it. Enforcement can mean garnishment of wages or bank accounts, a writ of seizure and sale registered against a home or other land, or, if the client asks, forcing a sale of real estate through the judicially supervised sale process the firm pioneered in Ontario. If the client wants, the bad debt can also go on the debtor's credit record.
Files with no enforcement route yet
Some clients tell the firm to sue even when no enforcement avenue has turned up. On those files it also keeps writing to and phoning the debtor, asking them to settle.
Finding hidden assets
Third parties who know where a debtor keeps hidden assets or earns undisclosed income can be ordered by a court to disclose it. Building on an earlier court ruling, the firm has developed a process for getting those orders efficiently.
Good to know
Accessible parkingFees & payment
ContingencyHow Christensen Law Firm works
Humanizing debt collection is the idea behind the firm's work. It pairs legal know-how with dignified, reputable tactics to recover bad debts, and its commitment is to hold delinquent customers to account respectfully through the courts rather than browbeat them into paying. The firm much prefers a voluntary payment without court enforcement, but when a debtor who can pay forces it to recommend a lawsuit, it's able to recover full interest and costs.
Timing is built into the method. Ontario imposed a two-year limitation period in 2004 under the Limitations Act, 2002, so the firm checks at the start whether a claim is worth suing on and then sues on every such file that goes unpaid, keeping value the limitation period would otherwise wipe out. As a matter of policy it won't recommend a discount when a debtor can pay in full, and it never closes a file until skip- and asset-tracing are done.
Reported cases
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Capital One Bank v. Matovska; Capital One Bank v. Blackwell; Capital One Bank v. Semple, 2007 CanLII 37015 (ON SCDC)
The Divisional Court allowed the bank's appeals in three Small Claims matters, finding that pre-proceeding collection expenses set out in a credit card agreement are a liquidated demand for money and that the contractual rate should generally govern pre- and post-judgment interest. T.R. Christensen was counsel for the plaintiff bank.
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Canaccede International Acquisitions Ltd. v. Abdullah, 2015 ONSC 5553
In five applications by a judgment creditor, the court found no binding authority making the sheriff's sale under the Execution Act the only way to enforce a money judgment against land, called the alternative method an evolution and improvement in the common law, and issued judgment on each application. Todd R. Christensen and Zameer N. Hakamali acted for the applicant.
Decisions where the firm's lawyers appeared as counsel, from public court records. Past cases don't predict future results.
Milestones & recognition
- January 2008: a favourable ruling in Sears Canada Bank v. Charlie Rice, a Burlington file, on the firm's position that a debt proven by documents and business records can be established without a single live witness. The firm now routinely conducts contested trials by affidavit, a practice later reported cases, Winters v. Turner (2009) and Woolcott v. Rocheleau (2010), have supported.
- 2008: the firm pioneered a collection litigation program for an open-access toll highway and in short order became that highway's primary collections law firm.
In the community
- Todd Christensen has written for Lawyers Daily (formerly Lawyers Weekly), with an October 2013 piece offering a real estate litigator's tips on closing and a February 2016 article on a better enforcement option for judgment creditors.
- Christensen prepared PowerPoint presentations for two guest lectures held for the Credit Institute of Canada in the fall of 2015, on October 13 and November 19.
- Christensen prepared materials for CPD programs on insolvency: a presentation in September 2015 and a paper in October 2016.
- Christensen has also blogged on when a limitation period starts (September 2017) and on amendments to Ontario's Collection and Debt Settlement Services Act that took effect on January 1, 2018.
Affiliations & connections
- Collectrite Credit Bureau Collections: Collectrite Credit Bureau Collections is a Cambridge, Ontario collection agency focused on bad debt. When a debt isn't resolved voluntarily and the customer can afford to pay, Collectrite works with Christensen Law Firm to enforce payment through the courts.
Lawyers 1
The neighbourhood
The office is at 6616 Ellis Road in Cambridge. Collectrite Credit Bureau Collections has its head office at the same Ellis Road address.
Frequently asked questions
- Do disbursements recovered from the debtor go back to the client?
- Yes. All disbursements Christensen Law Firm recovers from the debtor are repaid to the client.
- Can Christensen Law Firm enforce a judgment that another law firm or a paralegal won for me?
- Yes. Christensen Law Firm regularly enforces judgments that other law firms and paralegals obtained for its clients.
- Why is Christensen Law Firm's debt collection retainer shaped by Solicitors Act rules?
- Regulations under Ontario's Solicitors Act set specific requirements for any contingency fee retainer between lawyer and client. Those rules were aimed at personal-injury clients who might be vulnerable, yet Christensen Law Firm must still meet them for a contingency-fee debt recovery retainer to be valid.
- How does Christensen Law Firm use Collectrite and private investigators to find a debtor's assets?
- Christensen Law Firm has Collectrite, under contract, run database searches that locate debtors and identify their jobs, property, bank accounts and other enforcement options. When more digging is needed, the firm brings in private investigators.
Where to find them
6616 Ellis Road, Cambridge, Ontario, N3C 2V4 · 519-654-7350
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