Law Times

Page 2 February 2, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com NEWS Tim Leahy disbarred after years of battles with LSUC By yamri Taddese Law Times ormer Toronto law- yer Tim Leahy says the Law Society of Upper Canada has wrecked his career after the regulator disbarred him in what could be the end of a long and thorny relationship between them. "They destroyed my prac- tice," says Leahy, who says he won't appeal the decision lest he spend even more on legal costs and fees. Leahy, a lawyer called to the bar of Ontario in 1991, spent a good part of his career caught in the crosshairs of the law soci- ety. After years of proceedings, the regulator disbarred him in December for professional mis- conduct. One of his past pro- ceedings dates back to a 2004 suspension for practising with- out insurance with more recent decisions dealing with findings such as a failure to co-operate with an investigation. Last year, the law society found Leahy guilty of prac- tising law during a suspen- sion of his licence, commu- nicating with a client in an unprofessional manner, and failing to co-operate with an investigation in relation to a complaint from Federal Court Chief Justice Paul Crampton. In January 2013, Leahy, convinced that Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes had a personal vendetta against him, wrote a complaint to Cramp- ton. "It really does not matter to me that Justice Barnes loathes me, but, when he continues to pursue a personal agenda at my litigants' expense a time comes when I must speak out," he wrote in the letter. Leahy went on to describe his side of the legal wrangling involving federal skilled work- ers and a failure by Barnes to enforce an agreement. He also criticized Barnes for penning "a venom-laced" deci- sion against him. ". . . In his zeal to skewer me and slice and dice anyone who retains my services, Justice Barnes has issued an irratio- nal decision," according to the letter, which also suggested re- moving Barnes from the mat- ter lest he continue "knifing" Leahy's clients. While Leahy can no longer practise, the case behind the complaint affects the lives of hundreds of potential im- migrants. Some of the litigants had applied to become perma- nent residents through the fed- eral skilled-worker category as far back as 2004, but their ap- plications were still languish- ing at Citizenship and Immi- gration Canada when a note in the 2012 budget proposed throwing them out in order to reduce the backlog of cases. Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati has now taken over the files from Leahy, who says that when his lead client in Liang v. Canada (Citizenship and Immi- gration) won the right to have his skilled-worker application reopened, that ruling should have applied to 1,300 other cli- ents as per an agreement the Immigration Department had signed in February 2012. Galati says a hearing is to take place on April 21 after the court granted leave to appeal a decision not to enforce the agreement. He says he agrees the gov- ernment is "backpedalling on the agreement" by claiming subsequent legislation that ter- minated many skilled-worker cases nullified the accord it had signed in 2012. "Liang was argued, Mr. Lea- hy was successful, it was not ap- pealed. So those [other] cases should be decided on their merit just like Liang because they were all brought before the new law came in," says Galati. "They [the government] are relying on a provision of the legislation that retroactively extinguishes cases in the court brought before the legislation came in," he adds. "I'm bringing a constitution- al challenge of that provision saying you can't do that, you can't retroactively tell the court how to decide something that was before the court before you brought your legislation." Still, the language used in Leahy's complaint about how the court, and specifically Barnes, handled the matter has struck a nerve at the Federal Court. In response to Leahy's letter, Crampton wrote a letter to the law society complaining about Leahy's conduct. "The allegations are seri- ous," wrote Law Society Tribu- nal hearing panel chairwoman Heather Ross in a decision dat- ed Sept. 17, 2014. The regulator was investi- gating the possibility that Lea- hy had failed to treat the court with courtesy and respect and may have communicated with it in a manner inconsistent with the proper tone of professional communications from a law- yer, according to the decision. Leahy says he didn't want the law society to investigate the matter and instead asked the regulator to give the docu- ments — both his complaint about Barnes and Crampton's complaint about him — to an independent, third-party legal expert to look into whether his accusations of impropriety by the judge were off base. "If they were not, tell the chief justice to go take a hike," Leahy says about his thinking at the time. "They've always refused to do that. Instead, their investiga- tor, who is Damienne Lebrun- Reid, demanded that I provide her with the telephone num- bers and e-mail addresses of my lead litigants so that she could contact them and tell them the law society is investigating me for professional misconduct," he adds. "This is destroying my prac- tice. So I explained to the law society that this is irrelevant, outrageous," he continues. The language Leahy uses seems to be the basis of another complaint against him. In the case of a client only identified as A.L., the tribunal found Lea- hy had used an improper tone in an e-mail. A.L. had been mulling over the idea of joining the group of skilled-worker applicants Lea- hy represented but hadn't made up his mind. "Let me consult with my wife and i [sic] will get back to you shortly!" A.L. had said in an e-mail to Leahy. In a second e-mail, A.L. said he wanted to consult with his employer's lawyer before joining the case. Before A.L. had made up his mind, Leahy went ahead and added him to the litigation anyway, explaining later that he could withdraw if he wanted to but noting he didn't want him to miss the deadline to join the case. Upon hearing that, A.L. asked to withdraw from the litigation immediately and fol- lowed up with a question on when the withdrawal would be complete. "Let me consult with my wife and i [sic] will get back to you shortly!" Leahy wrote back/ Those were "words that can only be described as sarcastic and disrespectful," wrote Ross in the panel's decision. "I just quoted him right back to him," Leahy tells Law Times, noting A.L.'s e-mails were fre- quent and impatient. But was his response appro- priate? "Of course not," says Leahy. "But for God's sake, I'm not a saint. He sent me like four e- mails in a five-minute period demanding that I tell him spe- cifically when I'm going to do this and it doesn't have to be done," he adds. "He's not going to relent un- til I tell him in three minutes." That case was hardly a cause for disciplinary action, accord- ing to Leahy. "You don't disbar somebody because of that. You don't even take it to a disciplin- ary panel. It was massive over- kill. What lawyer hasn't said something that he would later regret?" The law society's ruling also listed practising while under suspension among Leahy's acts of misconduct. At times, Leahy says he was simply acting "like a decent human being" but not giving advice when he commu- nicated with a client during his suspension. LT Les mises en candidature à l'élection des membres du Conseil du Barreau de 2015 prennent fin le 13 février 2015 à 17 h HNE. La prochaine élection des membres du conseil aura lieu le 30 avril 2015. Les avocates et les avocats qui désirent se présenter aux élections doivent remplir un formulaire de mise en candidature et leur candidature doit être proposée par au moins cinq (5) avocates et avocats titulaires de permis. Les formulaires de candidature doivent être reçus par le Barreau à Osgoode Hall au plus tard le 13 février 2015 à 17 h. Les exigences d'admissibilité et des renseignements supplémentaires sont accessibles sur le site Web du Barreau du Haut-Canada. Nominations for the Law Society of Upper Canada's 2015 Bencher Election close at 5 pm EST, February 13, 2015. The next bencher election will be held on April 30, 2015. Lawyers who wish to be candidates must complete a nomination form and be nominated by at least five (5) lawyer licensees. Nomination forms must be received by the Law Society at Osgoode Hall by 5:00 p.m. on February 13. Eligibility requirements and more information can be found on The Law Society of Upper Canada's website. 2015 BENCHER ELECTION 2015 ÉLECTION DES MEMBRES DU CONSEIL www.lsuc.on.ca/election-conseillers-2015 www.lsuc.on.ca/bencher-election-2015 Untitled-1 1 2015-01-26 3:44 PM 'What lawyer hasn't said something that he would later regret?' asks Tim Leahy. F

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