Category Archives: News Items

Grandfather of eyewitness in police assault trial files complaint against defence lawyer

Posted on by

Written by Joe Lofaro, Metro Ottawa,  and published online May 7, 2013.

The grandfather of a key witness in the Ottawa police assault trial has filed a formal complaint against defence lawyer Michael Edelson, calling his cross-examination “excessively aggressive and intimidating.”

Norm Doucette filed the complaint with the Law Society of Upper Canada on May 3 after sitting in on the first days of the trial of Constables Thanh Tran and Colin Bowie.

The officers are accused of assault causing bodily harm during the Aug. 13, 2011 arrest of a homeless man, Hugh Styres. They have pleaded not guilty.

“Mr. Edelson repeatedly badgered and harassed my granddaughter over relatively minor details in a blatant attempt to upset and confuse her regarding events took place two years ago when she was only 17,” wrote Doucette following testimony from his granddaughter, River Doucette.

He also wrote that his granddaughter and daughter, Tasha, were doing a “civic duty,” when they reported the alleged abuse.

For the rest of the story, click HERE

C Schmitz: “Supreme Court of Canada to look at issue of ex-judges representing clients in court “

Posted on by

By Cristin Schmitz and posted in Lawyers Weekly, April 12, 2013.  For the original article on the Lawyers Weekly website and photos, click HERE.

Should ex-judges be forever banned from appearing as counsel in their former courts – or indeed in any courts?

Charles Huband of Winnipeg’s Taylor McCaffrey, who sat on the Manitoba Court of Appeal for 28 years before he retired in 2007, doesn’t think so. Manitoba’s Law Society takes the same position — although the opinion of legal regulators across Canada is not unanimous. Continue reading →

Killer officer’s lawyer owes Ont. thousands

Posted on by
Published in the Windsor Star – for the website, click HERE
The Canadian Press| Apr 04, 2013 | Last Updated: Apr 04, 2013 – 7:10 UTCThe Canadian Press| Apr 04, 2013 | Last Updated: Apr 04, 2013 – 7:10 UTC

An assessment of the taxpayer-funded legal bills of a former Toronto police officer who killed his lover has found that one of his lawyers overbilled the province by nearly $200,000.

Richard Wills was convicted of first-degree murder in 2007 for killing Linda Mariani then stuffing her body in a garbage can and sealing it behind a wall in his basement. Wills was once a millionaire, but he systematically divested himself of his assets, then ran up a $1.2-million legal bill to Legal Aid Ontario and the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The ministry asked the court to assess the legal bills of two of the several lawyers Wills went through and the court found Wednesday that of the approximately $770,000 that Munyonzwe Hamalengwa billed, about $178,000 was “excessive.”

The government did not pay Hamalengwa, who represented Wills on many pre-trial motions, for the last bill he submitted, so that leaves Hamalengwa owing the province $86,000.

The bills for the other lawyer, Raj Napal, have not yet been assessed and a lawsuit launched by the government to recover money spent on Wills’ defence was put on hold until both assessment proceedings are finished.

A Wherry, “Pat Martin vs. The Justice Minister”

Posted on by

Written by by Aaron Wherry and published on MacLean’s website on Thursday, March 7, 2013 11:32am

For the original article and comments on the Maclean’s website, click HERE

Ed Schmidt, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, is currently challenging the department in Federal Court—seehere and here—over the department’s obligation to inform Parliament if a piece of legislation violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The NDP’s Pat Martin has now taken this issue to the House, raising it as a matter of privilege.

Mr. Schmidt alleges the Department of Justice counsel have adopted a policy of interpreting the constitutional duty as meaning “no advice is given to the minister that he or she…has a duty to report to the House” so long as “some argument can reasonable be made in favour of its consistency with the charter, even if all the arguments in favour of consistency have a combined likelihood of success of 5% or less”. If these allegations are in fact true, my privilege as a member of Parliament, indeed the privileges of each member of Parliament, have been breached.

Supposedly, when a bill is placed before the House as government bill, every member can be reassured by law that the bill is not in violation of either the Bill of Rights or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by the fact that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada has examined the bill and finds it to be compliant with these fundamental Canadian laws. If the allegations of Edgar Schmidt are true, we members cannot rely on the performance of these statutory and constitutional duties to know that a bill is consistent with the Bill of Rights and charter in deciding our vote as the bill proceeds through the committees and the House. Based on these allegations, the Department of Justice is approving proposed legislation that has only a mere remote possibility of being consistent with the charter or the Bill of Rights. In contrast, Schmidt argues that the statutory examination provisions require the Department of Justice to determine whether the proposed legislation is actually consistent with the charter or the Bill of Rights, not on the possibility of whether or not the legislation could be consistent.

This hinders us as members of Parliament in the performance of our parliamentary duties. It constitutes an interference in the performance of our duties to exercise due diligence of the bills before us. I believe every member of the House would agree that if these allegations are proven to be true, they show contempt for the authority and dignity of Parliament.

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler is due to add his concerns and there will no doubt be a response from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson before the Speaker makes a ruling.

 

J Gray: Ethics, conflicts of interest focal point for think tank

Posted on by

Published in The Globe and Mail Thursday, Feb. 28 2013, 5:00 AM EST and last updated Thursday, Feb. 28 2013, 7:02 AM EST

 

Jeff Gray

A new think tank being announced next week by the University of Toronto’s law school will take on the ethical issues lawyers faced on Bay Street, where they increasingly struggle with conflict-of-interest rules and other dilemmas. Continue reading →

J McNish, C Tait and K Cryderman: Bay Street law firms advised Griffiths on Chad deal

Posted on by

Jacquie McNish, Carrie Tait, and Kelly Cryderman

TORONTO and CALGARY — The Globe and Mail – posted HERE

Published Saturday, Jan. 26 2013, 8:00 AM EST; Last Updated again Jan 28, 2013

Prominent Canadian law firms Heenan Blaikie and Macleod Dixon provided legal services in connection with a $2-million payment by Griffiths Energy International Inc. to the wife of an African diplomat, a transaction that led the company to pay a $10.35-million fine in a bribery case this week.

According to people familiar with the case, the junior oil and gas company turned to the blue chip corporate law firms to help guide it in the late 2000s through a series of difficult negotiations with officials from Chad, which ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. When a new slate of Griffiths executives uncovered the $2-million (U.S.) bribe in 2011, it alerted police, sparking an investigation that culminated this week in a settlement agreement and fine that a Calgary judge on Friday called “an embarrassment to all Canadians.” Continue reading →

B Curry: Judge raps Justice officials for treatment of whistle-blower

Posted on by

BILL CURRY

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jan. 16 2013, 6:00 AM EST; Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 16 2013, 6:24 PM EST

Ottawa is crafting legislation that risks running afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without informing Parliament, a federal lawyer charges.

In a highly unusual case, Department of Justice lawyer Edgar Schmidt is challenging his own department in Federal Court and revealing details about the internal guidelines used by federal lawyers. The department accuses Mr. Schmidt of violating his duties as a lawyer and public servant and has suspended him without pay. Continue reading →

A Dodek: Top Issues for the Canadian Legal Profession for 2013

Posted on by

Via SLAW – for the website, click HERE

Posted by Adam Dodek, January 4

In the spirit of the New Year, Resolutions and Top 10 lists, I present to you my predictions for the top issues that the legal profession in Canada will face in 2013. This was inspired by a discussion on the listserv of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics (CALE) and in particular by contributions fromAlice Woolley who started things off with a “Best of 2012” post that you can find here. Malcolm Mercer, Tom Harrison, and Richard Devlin, as always, expanded and enriched the discussion. Some of my “Top Issues for 2013” repeat Alice’s Top Issues in 2012 but I think that is the nature of our slow-to-change profession.

So here is my “homage to David Letterman” and the Top 10 Issues for the Canadian Legal Profession in 2013:

10. The continuing battle over conflicts of interest

The SCC’s conflicts trilogy will become a quadrilogy (?) (or a tetralogy?) with McKercher being heard by the SCC on January 24, 2013. Elsewhere, I have written about the battle over conflicts of interest between the CBA and theFederation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) Continue reading →

A Woolley: Top Ten Canadian Legal Ethics Stories – 2012

Posted on by

Via ABLawg – for the website, click HERE.

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Alice Woolley

At the blog Legal Ethics Forum John Steele recently published a list of the top ten legal ethics stories in America in 2012 (here). With contributions from Adam Dodek (University of Ottawa), Malcolm Mercer (McCarthy Tetrault), Richard Devlin (Dalhousie), and other members of the Canadian Legal Ethics Listserv, here is my articulation of a Canadian edition:

The Top Ten

1. The Law Society of Upper Canada’s modification of the articling requirement to allow, at least on a test basis, some people to become members of the bar through alternative forms of training.

The link to the LSUC website on the Articling Task Force is here. Former Law Society of Upper Canada Treasurer Gavin Mackenzie’s critique of the change is discussed here. An article on the final vote of the Law Society is here. The irony of this is that one of the items in John Steele’s list (at point 5, in the discussion of changes in general education) is about initiatives by the bars of New York and California to increase practical training requirements – in the form of a pro bono requirement in New York and in the form of striking a commission on practical training in California. Will the public in Ontario be well served by this change? Will the profession be improved in the long run? There was clearly a gap between the number of qualified people seeking articling positions and the number of positions available in Ontario, a gap that also exists elsewhere in Canada. Articling had become a barrier to entry to the profession that was hard to justify as a matter of principle or of sound public policy. But whether this solution to that gap represents regulation of the profession in the public interest remains to be seen. Continue reading →

A Seymour: Lawyer who posted confidential material caught up in police sting

Posted on by

Published in the Ottawa Citizen, December 6, 2012

By Andrew Seymour

For the original posting, click HERE.

OTTAWA — A criminal defence lawyer became the target of a police sting after  posting what was supposed to be confidential allegations against one of his  clients online.

David Anber took to the web in an attempt to find someone who could help him  read blacked-out portions of disclosure documents provided to him by the Crown  and outlining evidence against his client.

The document also contained the client’s name, picture, date of birth,  employment details and phone and credit card numbers as well as copies of her  driver’s licence, pay slip and a bank account printout. Continue reading →