Author: Alice Woolley Page 13 of 20

PDF version: Lawyers regulating lawyers? 

Decision considered: Law Society of British Columbia v Laarakker Law Society of British Columbia Disciplinary Hearing Reports, September 21, 2011

Introduction

A disciplinary decision by the Law Society of British Columbia does not fall within the usual mandate of ABlawg. It is not an Alberta decision, nor even a judicial one, and has no direct precedential significance for Alberta lawyers or courts. The decision warrants comment, however, because the threat it creates to the legitimacy of lawyer self-regulation applies to all Canadian law societies. Specifically, the misdirection in regulatory energy reflected by the decision of the Law Society of British Columbia in this case is something to which all Canadian law societies have shown themselves to be susceptible.

This comment is a plea to the law societies to think more carefully about the cases they pursue; to take more seriously conduct by lawyers that undermines the rule of law; and, to allow lawyers to hold each other to account in circumstances where there is a reasonable basis to allege misconduct, even if lawyers sometimes do so with “incivility”. Law societies suggest that the public will lose faith in the legal profession if we do not treat each other with courtesy and civility, perhaps thinking that our own criticisms will make the public critical, and less able to access legal services even if they need them. I want to offer an alternative suggestion: the public will lose faith in us if we silence legitimate criticism and debate, and if we do nothing about lawyers who engage in conduct that could be reasonably characterized as extortion with letterhead.

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PDF version: Conflicts of Interest and Good Judgment

Case considered: Dow Chemical Canada Inc. v Nova Chemicals Corporation, 2011 ABQB 509

Previously on ABlawg I have suggested that outcomes in conflicts cases turn more on a judge’s overall impression of the facts and the equities than on the precise articulation and application of specific rules (here). A recent judgment of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench aligns with this perception, insofar as the outcome of the case seems closely linked to the judge’s assessment of the good faith and propriety of the conduct of the law firm alleged to be in conflict. The case also, though, shows the continued evolution of the principles that govern conflicts of interest. Specifically, Chief Justice Wittmann’s judgment provides new analysis of the principles governing what is necessary for a client to consent to a conflict in advance, how imputation rules operate in national firms, lawyers transferring between law firms, and the intersection between law society rules and judicial determinations in assessing conflicts. In this way the judgment may indicate that contrary to my earlier suggestion, conflicts cases are in fact like other legal judgments, with outcomes determined by a complex interplay of principles, rules, facts and, above all, the “judgment” of the judge, what in the context of moral decision-making David Luban and Michael Milleman have described as the ability to identify “which principle is most important given the particularities of the situation” (“Good Judgment: Ethics Teaching in Dark Times,” (1995-96) 9 Geo J of Legal Ethics 31 at 39). In other words, it’s not so much whether judges perceive lawyers to have been “good” or not, as it is whether judges perceive lawyers to have been good enough that the applicable principles do not require that they be removed from a file. This does mean that the interplay of fact and law matters more than the precise articulation of the law – i.e., that there is some legitimacy to my general feeling that the fights between the CBA and the Federation of Law Societies over the precise wording of conflicts rules is not a very good use of anyone’s time. But it does not mean that principles are irrelevant.

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PDF version: Confidentiality and Context: Lawyers’ obligations of confidentiality and loyalty when acting in both lawyer and non-lawyer roles for a client 

Case considered: Kent v. Martin, 2011 ABQB 298

Lawyers owe clients a duty of confidentiality, and also a fiduciary obligation to act in furtherance of their clients’ legal interests. The duty of confidentiality and the duty of loyalty are related. Breach of a client’s confidences without the client’s consent obviously has the potential to undermine accomplishment of the client’s legal objectives. The ability of a client to repose confidence in her lawyer has been identified by the Supreme Court as important to permit the lawyer to provide “sound legal advice” to that client (Smith v. Jones [1999] S.C.J. No. 15 at para. 46).

The specific obligations arising from lawyer duties of confidentiality and loyalty can be complex, however, particularly when a lawyer acts in more than one capacity for a client, and where the client’s interests may be both legal and non-legal. A recent Alberta case highlights these issues.

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