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Legal Profession in Ontario Critique
August Internet Edition 

EDITORIAL
Last month quoting from the Law Society regarding the better job they were
doing in keeping their claims from the public down , we hypothesised the
reasons were that they might not be allowing legitimate claims to be
processed. In  the next article on Gavin McKenzie maybe we can see another
reason.
It has been suggested that I have a vendetta against lawyers. Far from the
truth. Many are fine upstanding professionals that I respect. I do however
have a serious vendetta against the few legal scumbags out there, but more
properly against a professional society that doesn�t know its job. A
society too interested in protecting it�s billing rites than protecting
the public. A government that is afraid to rule them in. and a press that
too often fails to alert the public. Its an old joke but a truism
nevertheless.

I like to get kissed when I get SCREW..........

L.S.U.C. More Lawyer Friendly

In a recent article by Paula Kulig she quotes LSUC Bencher Gavin McKenzie
as telling a recent meeting of the Canadian Bar Association �Lawyers
facing discipline charges will receive a more sympathetic reception from
the Law Society than will other professionals appearing before their
governing bodies on misconduct allegations � He also said � Most benchers
are in the private bar and therefore tend to be sympathetic to the
pressures and tensions in a law office�. This Statement to me is pretty
clear. If you are a Dr. or an Engineer  you can expect your governing body
to hold you to a higher standard than that of a lawyer. ed.

The law Society announced on July 8,1997 that is was disbarring lawyer
Moshe Teller of Scarborough. Teller who liked to gamble , literally with
his clients money, $716,000.00 was found guilty and sentenced to 2 1/2
years last year. This  means that the court figures he is worth $286,400
per year. Not bad if you can get it in this day and age.
What the hell is wrong with the society. Why wait for over a year to take
action. 
Also disciplined at yesterdays announcement were Lawyers Chris Bazos &
Sydney Miskin.
LEGAL PROFESSIONALS
In January 1997, there were 37 hearing days on which discipline matters
proceeded before hearing
panels of Benchers of the Law Society. Discipline matters proceeded before
hearing panels on 23.5
hearing days in February 1997.
MISAPPROPRIATION
Godfrey, Christopher Stanley
North York, Ontario
Age 46, Called to the Bar 1978
Particulars of Complaint
Professional Misconduct
* Misapplied $21,771.54 more or less from his mixed trust account on or
about August 10, 1994, by paying this
amount from his mixed trust account to various third parties for the
benefit of a client.
* Misappropriated $8,228.46 more or less from his mixed trust account,
between September 10, 1994 and October
25, 1994. * Disbarment 
FAILURE TO SERVE CLIENTS / UNGOVERNABILITY
Kinnaird, Timothy Michael
Toronto, Ontario
Age 39, Called to the Bar 1990
Particulars of Complaint
Professional Misconduct
Discipline History
* September 1993: Reprimand in Committee for failing to fulfil a financial
obligation, failing to reply to the Law Society and failing to file his
Form 2 for the fiscal year ended November 30, 1991.
* October 1994: Reprimand in Committee for failing to reply to the Law
Society on three separate matters. 
FAILURE TO SERVE CLIENTS
Sussmann, Frederick Bernard
Ottawa, Ontario
Age 79, Called to the Bar 1973 
(Previously called in the United States)
Particulars of Complaint
Professional Misconduct
* Disbarment
MISAPPLICATION OF FUNDS
Hacker, Harvey Howard
Toronto, Ontario
Age 51, Called to the Bar 1975
Particulars of Complaint
Professional Misconduct
* Fifteen-month suspension commencing 
January 23, 1997.
* $6000 in costs, payable over time.
* Undertaking from the Solicitor not to act for both lender and borrower
in mortgage transactions except where the lender is a financial
institution and not to represent both vendor and purchaser when acting on
a real estate transaction.
IMPROPER BORROWING FROM CLIENTS
Herman, Lawrence Isadore
North York, Ontario
Age 51, Called to the Bar 1973
* Six-month suspension commencing April 4, 1997.
* Costs of $7,500 to be paid before reinstatement, failing which
suspension will 
continue until costs are paid.
MISAPPROPRIATION
Clark, Peter David
Barrie, Ontario
Age 37, Called to the Bar 1986
* Disbarment. Discipline History
* March 25, 1994: Reprimand in Committee for failing to file and undertook
not to practice until filings were completed.
* April 27, 1995: Eight-month suspension with conditions on reinstatement
for failing to maintain books and
records; misleading the Law Society; failing to reply; failing to serve
clients; and practising under suspension.
MISAPPLICATION OF CLIENT FUNDS
Gardner, Donald Alan
Mississauga, Ontario
Age 52, Called to the Bar 1972
* Permission to resign.
FAILED TO DEPOSIT RETAINER IN TRUST
Fay, Francis Xavier
Toronto, Ontario
Age 55, Called to the Bar 1969
* Sixteen-month suspension commencing January 23, 1997.
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More and more people are applying to have their lawyers bills assessed.
The three month wait to have an assessment officer hear your case has been
extended by 5 retiring officers not yet replaced. The office is at present
unable to even give you a hearing date.
THE FIRST THING WE DO IS KILL ALL THE LAWYERS , Shakespeare
The above quote is used as the main theme for an Ottawa Internet web site
for a  group of lawyers in that infamous town. I think it quite
appropriate. The other internet development is that lawyers jokes are the
fifth fastest growing development on the web . Hotbot , a search engine
quotes over 100,000 by last count. Many of these sites are maintained by
legal firms around the world . a few samples are to found below from a
site in Washington D.C. but the same reoccurring theme is reflected in
many sites. 
What's the difference between a lawyer and a trampoline?
You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline!

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
His lips are moving.

What's the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead lawyer in
the road?
There are skid marks in front of the dog.

What do you do if you run over a Lawyer?
Back over him to make sure. 
Make another notch on the steering wheel.

Why won't sharks attack lawyers?\
Professional courtesy.

What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?
One's a bottom-crawling scum sucker and the other's just a fish.

What do lawyers use as contraceptives?
Their personalities.

What's the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?
A vampire only sucks blood at night.

When lawyers die, why are they buried in a hole 24 feet deep?
Because down deep, they are all nice guys!!!!

A woman and her little girl were visiting the grave of the little girl's
grandmother. On their way
through the cemetery back to the car, the little girl asked, "Mommy, do
they ever bury two people in
the same grave?" "Of course not, dear." replied the mother, "Why would you
think that?"
"The tombstone back there said 'Here lies a lawyer and an honest man.'"
fax to 416-363-4430 or email to mreecs@fox.nstn.ca


The Canadian justice system stinks !


Now Milgard is found innocent after serving 23 years, before him it was
Morin and before him Marshall , all innocent  men . While Kovacks lets a
serial killer (Homolka) get off with 12 years.
The later ( Homolka ) was a conspiracy aided and abetted by Attorney
General, Marion , �man hating Boyd� and her henchman Michael Code.

LAWYERS KNOW
ed. The lawyers know who is not performing to respected standards and as
long as they do not police themselves the public will suffer.  Below find
the contents of a recent voice mail between two of Toronto�s finest. 

From Jeffrey Kramer , reputation sharp but pricey to Mel Solman,
reputation very pricey. He couldn�t take the call as he was busy teaching
the Bar  Ads. �Its now Wednesday . I haven�t  heard from anybody. Please
let me know what you are doing. If you have no interest in talking, well
tell me that and I will pass that on. If you have just been too busy to
get to the file , well tell me that and please get to it so we can set
something up. There is an urgency from my clients point of view. You may
not be taking this seriously as I am but the result will likely be if we
don�t do something else, you are left with the kind of lawsuit that you
told  you couldn�t wait to get into , which is suing all sorts of other
people for all sorts of things and if that�s what your client wants ,
maybe she will have the opportunity to do it , but I think there may be a
better way as I keep expressing to you.� 
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MORE NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
ANOTHER $13GS WHACK
Scarborough school trustees spent nearly $13,000 on lawyers to find out
how they should handle the tab for their director's
Asian travels, documents show.
And the advice - which included opinions from two $300-an-hour downtown
Toronto law firms - cost $2,000 more than
Earl Campbell's now famous 14-day junket to Asia. 
SPECIAL MEETING
The bills - which total $12,937.91 for counsel given primarily to board
chairman Gaye Dale. 

The documents show both lawyers attended a special March 3 board meeting,
racking up nearly $5,000 for the job. Dale
said they sought a second opinion from high-profile lawyer Julian Porter
because "we wanted to know our legal rights,"
`DISGUSTING' Wanda Halliday, co-founder of Scarborough Needs Accountable
Politicians, said she found the whole issue "disgusting."
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Finally this month in a letter to the editor 

Mr. Ted Burke of Ottawa writes
�In a July article dealing with the supreme court appointment of an
advocate for Quebec Mr. Justice John Major is quoted �To act as a lawyer
you were really supposed to be , in many ways neutered�. Excellent idea
says Ted .Why not go all the way and extend it to the entire legal
profession?


We are too tolerant of dysfunction in the justice system 

Saturday, July 26, 1997
By William Thorsell 

POLICE and prosecutors are still operating on the old industrial
assumption that every production
run inevitably generates a certain number of faulty products. In factories
you used to see "quality
control officers" standing at the end of every assembly line. They were
there to catch the hourly
mistakes (or most of them) and send them back to the plant as rejects or
on to the factory outlet as
seconds. 

Although mistakes in the justice system have far more serious consequences
than most other
systems (except, perhaps, for aeroplane manufacturers), we have tolerated
terrible mistakes out of
respect for the difficulty of the jobs being done. 

It's tough being a police officer, so killing unarmed individuals
mistakenly thought to be mortally
dangerous is the price of public safety. The police have a lot to do, so
botched investigations that
allow dangerous people to carry on their awful crimes are understandable.
We'll just have to live
with it. 

It's tough being a police investigator, so poorly founded, blinkered,
distorted criminal cases against
innocent people are going to happen from time to time. 

Life in the forensic lab can be a bore, so amateurish procedures, bad
training and sloppy execution
are going to crop up here and there. 

The fact that innocent people are charged, tried and incarcerated for
years, their lives ruined, their
families distraught, is one of those necessary evils that we must accept
in the name of a greater
good: public order. 

Surely our tolerance for dysfunction in the justice system has gone too far. 

Two things define total quality management: measurable standards and
effective accountability. The
standards generally aim for zero defects -- not 1 per cent, but zero. The
accountability generally
involves something akin to economic death: the loss of a contract or the
loss of a job. With these
defining elements in place, the focus shifts to the process by which
things are done. Every aspect
that threatens perfection is reformed, replaced or eliminated. Do It Right
The First Time becomes
the mantra, and the whole culture of the workplace changes to expect
perfection. 

Zero defects obviously reduce the costs associated with error, but the
changes to process that are
necessary to achieve zero defects also tend to reduce costs. The outcome
is cheaper and better
products or services, and a much stronger position in competitive markets. 

The justice system gives every appearance of anachronism in this context
(as do the much less
powerful media in some ways). The number of mistakes that lead to either
guilty people going free
or innocent people going to jail seems to be much higher than in most
other critical functions in
society. (Can you imagine the electrical power, gas, transportation or
communications systems
failing as frequently as the justice system does?) 

Moreover, most anyone who has been through a court procedure is shocked at
the wasted time and
human resources that seem to prevail. Archaic procedures (such as
examinations for discovery,
trial-date appearances etc.) add enormous unproductive costs to the
system. There appear to be no
reasonable productivity measures for police, lawyers and courts. And
accountability for mistakes
caused by incompetence is very loose indeed. 

When investigations, prosecutions and trials go awry through incompetence,
the price is paid
almost entirely by the victim. When some cases so shock the public
conscience that inquiries are
held, the outcome is typically a set of general recommendations for
change. In practice, the system
goes on without any serious alteration of basic processes, incentives or
penalties. Individuals
responsible for terrible wrongs rarely pay anything like the price they
would in comparably
important sectors of society. 

The paramilitary, male-bonded culture of the police serves to protect the
individual within a tight
cocoon of group loyalty. The police are adept at keeping the public onside
through skilful
public-relations exercises (calling the media in to cover major drug or
gang busts), and by
reminding the population of how dependent it is on the police for personal
security (sans nous le
d�luge). The public has a high tolerance for errors by the police because
it values what police do
and empathises with the risks. 

Prosecutors are almost anonymous, and we assume they have a simple duty to
prove police
charges, no matter how dubious the evidence. 

Lawyers can give terrible advice and conduct shoddy defences -- all so
hard to measure -- without
any serious consequences. Who has the incentive, resources or criteria to
really hold lawyers to
account? 

The independence of judges is so firmly entrenched as a principle and
value that only the most
egregious failings come to public notice or formal review. One assumes
that chief justices call
various judges in for chats about their skills, but who knows? 

The more profound the exercise of power, the more essential the standards
for quality and
accountability. The justice system lacks far too much of both.



E-mail: wthorsell@globeandmail.ca


�  
Note mreecs email service says that circulation in July of this critique
exceeded 350,000 copiess