By: Alice Woolley
PDF Version: Regulating Lawyer-Client Sex
In Canada we allow lawyers to have sex with their clients. Or, to be precise: we do not prohibit lawyers from having sex with their clients.
Canadian law societies do regulate lawyer-client sex in a limited way. Almost all law societies prohibit sexual harassment. And most law societies also identify lawyer-client sex as potentially creating conflicts of interest. They identify sexual relationships with clients as the sort of thing that may “conflict with the lawyer’s duty to provide objective, disinterested professional advice to the client” and which may “permit exploitation of the client” (FLS Model Code Rule 3.4-1, Commentary 11(d), adopted in BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEI and the territories). Ontario has not adopted the FLS Commentary. The Commentary in Ontario says instead “the judgment of a lawyer who has a close personal relationship, sexual or otherwise, with a client who is in a family law dispute is likely to be compromised” (Rule 3.4-1, Commentary 4). Alberta has also not adopted the FLS Commentary. Alberta’s Code does not reference sexual relationships anywhere in its conflicts rules. Indeed, apart from its harassment rules, Alberta’s Code does not mention sex at all.