Sentencing for Legal Profession Offences
General Principles
Principles and Factors
- Purposes
The purpose of a law society discipline proceedings is "not to punish offenders and exact retribution, but rather to protect the public, maintain high professional standards, and preserve public confidence in the legal profession."[1]
The objectives of a penalty include:[2]
- specific deterrence, which would be an order preventing a particular lawyer from continuing in a course of conduct.
- general deterrence, which is an order that the entire membership should take into account. It is designed to deter the membership at large from engaging in a certain course of conduct.
- directed towards such aspects as rehabilitation, restitution, and improving the competence of a particular lawyer.
- the most fundamental, and that is to maintain public confidence in the legal profession.
Disciplinary bodies will often take into account sentencing principles from criminal law.[3]
- Factors
Factors to consider on penalty include:[4]
- the nature and gravity of the conduct proven;
- the age and experience of the respondent;
- the previous character of the respondent, including details of prior discipline;
- the impact upon the victim;
- the advantage gained, or to be gained, by the respondent;
- the number of times the offending conduct occurred;
- whether the respondent has acknowledged the misconduct and taken steps to disclose and redress the wrong and the presence or absence of other mitigating circumstances;
- the possibility of remediating or rehabilitating the respondent;
- the impact upon the respondent of criminal or other sanctions or penalties;
- the impact of the proposed penalty on the respondent;
- the need for specific and general deterrence;
- the need to ensure the public’s confidence in the integrity of the profession;
- the range of penalties imposed in similar cases;
- likelihood of reoffence;
- mental state;
- presence of addictions;
- stresses from financial or matrimonial difficulties;
- amount of restitution given.
The protection of the public by means of rehabilitation does not have much relevance when the choice is between disbarment and resignation.[5]
- ↑
see Gavin MacKenzie, Lawyers and Ethics: Professional Responsibility and Discipline (Carswell, 1993) at page 26-1
Batchelor (Re), 2013 LSBC 9 (CanLII), at para 40
- ↑
NSBS v Rodgers, 2021 NSBS 2 (CanLII), at para 9
LSUC v Strug, 2008 ONLSHP 88 (CanLII), at paras 3 to 8 - ↑ Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society v Steele, 1995 NSBS 8 (CanLII)
- ↑
Batchelor (Re), ibid., at para 41
Law Society of BC v. Ogilvie, [1999] LSBC 17
Faminoff v The LSBC, 2017 BCCA 373 (CanLII), at para 36
Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society v Steele, 1995 NSBS 8 (CanLII) citing Lawyers and Ethics, Professional Responsibility and Discipline by Gavin MacKenzie (Carswell, 1993) - ↑ Steele, supra
Penalties
- Ontario
- Law Society of Ontario v King, 2022 ONLSTH 6 (CanLII)
- LSO v Dakin, 2022 ONLSTH 23 (CanLII)
- LSO v Ljiljanic, 2021 ONLSTH 5 (CanLII)
- LSO v Dinning, 2021 ONLSTH 85 (CanLII)
- LSO v Zaitzeff, 2021 ONLSTH 108 (CanLII)
- LSO v Zaitzeff, 2021 ONLSTH 108 (CanLII)
- LSO v Campbell, 2021 ONLSTH 112 (CanLII)
- LSO v Decock, 2021 ONLSTH 121 (CanLII)
- LSO v Ferguson, 2021 ONLSTH 124 (CanLII)
- LSUC v Farant, 2014 ONLSTH 201 (CanLII)
- LSUC v Sinukoff, 2012 ONLSHP 12 (CanLII)
- LSUC v Neinstein, 2008 CanLII 48142 (ON SCDC)
- LSUC v Kiernan, 2006 ONLSHP 98 (CanLII)
- LSUC v Babij, 2004 ONLSHP 24 (CanLII) - 12 months suspension - "a lawyer’s neglect resulted in misappropriations, engineered by his wife, of approximately $1,900,000."
- Nova Scotia
- NSBS v McKeough, 2022 NSBS 1 (CanLII)
- NSBS v Rhyno, 2021 NSBS 4 (CanLII)
- NSBS v Robinson, 2021 NSBS 3 (CanLII)
- Colpitts, 2020 NSBS 2 (CanLII)
- NSBS v Jacquard, 2012 NSBS 1 (CanLII) - 12 month suspension
- NSBS v Anderson, 2003 NSBS 4 (CanLII) - 24 month suspension
- NSBS v Rhindress, 2002 NSBS 9 (CanLII) - 12 month suspension