Law Times - Newsmakers

top stories LSUC regulatory actions spark vigorous debates Issues range from civility to how law society handles mental illness By Yamri Taddese The PAST YEAR saw several parts of the legal industry chiming in on how the Law Society of Upper Canada should regulate lawyers and paralegals. Be it the cause of prosecution or its length and aggressiveness, some key cases allowed for discussions on issues ranging from admissible evidence to conflicts of interest and how the law society should deal with lawyers and paralegals with mental illnesses. Lawyer Joe Groia's civility case went to appeal this year, raising new questions about what constitutes admissible evidence in law society proceedings. A hearing panel had found Groia guilty of misconduct last year for his actions during the Bre-X Minerals Ltd. trial when he successfully defended geologist John Felderhof. As Groia's appeal got underway this year, Terrence O'Sullivan, counsel for The Advocates' Society as an intervener in the case, said the hearing panel shouldn't have admitted comments the judge had made during the trial as evidence when the law society prosecuted Groia years later for conduct that included sarcasm and "petulant invective." "They were conclusive remarks, not facts or expert opinions," O'Sullivan said in September. "They don't constitute admissible evidence." Law society counsel Tom Curry disagreed, arguing the panel couldn't have ignored the judge's comments during the hearing. In other regulatory matters, members of the legal profession decried the adversarial nature of law society proceedings even when there was no evidence to continue with a prosecution. After almost eight years of conflict of interest proceedings, a hearing panel cleared Torys LLP's Darren Sukonick and his nowretired colleague Beth DeMerchant of any wrongdoing in October. The charges followed work the two lawyers did in relation to the sale of Hollinger International Inc. assets between 2000 and 2003. In the wake of the law society ruling that concluded there was no evidence to make findings of professional misconduct, Sukonick told Law Times that focusing on the proceedings in the last eight years had meant freezing his corporate law practice. Although he had remained an active member of his firm's pro bono law committee, he said he still has a lot of catching up to do on his practice. Toronto lawyer Marcy Segal said the ruling in Sukonick and DeMerchant's matter suggested the law society had cast a wide net and wasn't willing to withdraw its case once it discovered it had no evidence. "It also sounds like the law society was relentless and was not prepared or did not have their eyes open to sense that this hearing was not going to be successful," she said. Sukonick's counsel Ian Smith agreed the process could have been much shorter and the accusations less obscure. "Had the law society been less combative and adversarial and had the process been more transparent, we could have engaged in a productive discussion that may have narrowed both the legal issues to consider as well as the areas of factual dispute," he said. Despite a couple of cases that triggered controversy, the year also saw important precedents that received kudos from the profession. In a unique decision earlier this year, hearing panel chairman Larry Banack set a new standard for how the law society should treat lawyers and paralegals with mental illnesses in the context of disciplinary proceedings. In a case involving paralegal Vanessa Vader, who had failed to correspond with the law society, the hearing panel ultimately dismissed the application after finding she had been suffering from depression and called the current system "blunt" and "ineffective" in the context of mental illness. Banack went as far as suggesting the LSUC introduce a special hearing panel that deals with cases involving mental illness. E. V. Litigation & Financial Services Inc. Elaine G. Vegotsky, CMA, CFE, CFI Assisting you in Litigation & Forensic Accounting, Financial Investigations Suite 900 45 Sheppard Avenue East, Willowdale, Ontario M2N 5W9 EV-Litigation_LT_Splmnt_11.indd 1 Telephone (416) 930-1370 and/or Fax (905) 731-5812 evlitigation@rogers.com 2013 top news, newsmakers, and cases 13 11-11-25 10:02 AM

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