Information About Filing a Formal Complaint Against a Canadian Lawyer

[Matthew Chan]

Because this information is so valuable to keep Canadian Lawyers in check, I have started a new thread and reposted this information first shared by BuddhaPi.

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Law Society’s Professional Conduct Department
Mail: 845 Cambie Street, Vancouver BC V6B 4Z9
Fax: 604.605.5399

The Law Society is the organization that licenses all BC lawyers. It protects the public by setting professional standards of conduct and competence for lawyers; it monitors, evaluates, and disciplines them.

The Professional Conduct Department has commercial crime investigators, forensic auditors, and lawyers. The Department reviews all complaints against lawyers, as follows:

First, the Department decides if they have the authority to investigate your complaint. If not, they close the file. If they have the authority to investigate, they look into your complaint in detail and contact the lawyer for a response – so the lawyer will learn of your complaint. Then, they do one of the following things:

Take no further action if the complaint cannot be proved or does not show conduct serious enough to justify further action.
 
Send the complaint to the Practice Standards Committee if competency is the issue. That committee decides if the lawyer needs to upgrade skills, change their practice, or obtain other guidance.
 
Send the complaint to the Discipline Committee if there are ethical concerns or breaches of Law Society rules. That committee decides if there should be a review of, or a formal disciplinary hearing into, the lawyer's conduct.
Law Society discipline hearings are like court hearings – Law Society staff present the case against the lawyer and the lawyer gives his or her side of the case. A hearing can lead to:

A reprimand (a warning) of the lawyer.
A fine up to $20,000.
Conditions controlling how the lawyer works.
Suspension of the lawyer from working as a lawyer or from working in one or more areas of law (with or without conditions) for a certain time.
Disbarment of the lawyer (meaning the lawyer cannot work as a lawyer).
For more information on the complaint process, phone the Law Society at 604.66

http://www.cba.org/bc/public_media/lawyers/436.aspx

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I credit SoylentGreen for the links below. Thanks, SG.

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I think that you'd be interested in the "Law Society of Upper Canada":

http://www.lsuc.on.ca/

Complaints:

http://www.lsuc.on.ca/with.aspx?id=644