admin @ Mon, 2006-09-11 11:00
A respected senior partner of a national law firm, who blamed his marital woes when he resigned abruptly as the top ethics watchdog for Canada's 88,500 lawyers and 3,500 Quebec notaries, is under investigation by Ontario's law society after his intimate relationship with a divorced client turned sour.
The Law Society of Upper Canada, which governs the legal profession in Ontario, is delving into whether its former leader, George Hunter, engaged in professional misconduct in relation to a personal relationship he had with a woman he was representing in a family law dispute until last November, the current edition of The Lawyers Weekly reveals.
Last December, Mr. Hunter, a father of two, stepped down from his post as the law society's treasurer, citing the breakdown of his marriage and the need to devote himself to his children. He also resigned as the legal profession's top ethics regulator in his capacity as president of the Federation of Law Societies, the umbrella group for Canada's 14 law societies.
The civil litigator, who remains on an extended leave of absence from the Ottawa office of the 700-lawyer firm Borden Ladner Gervais, confirmed that he is under investigation.
"I do not feel that I violated any rules of professional conduct," Mr. Hunter said. "They are conducting an investigation, but I don't know where it's at. I do not feel I have offended any rules."
Whether the law society's governors ultimately agree with Mr. Hunter that he has fully complied with the rules, or decide instead that there are reasonable grounds to authorize a formal disciplinary proceeding against him, his situation is likely to renew debate inside and outside the legal profession over the propriety and pitfalls of lawyer-client sexual relationships.
Unlike Canadian doctors, who have a "zero tolerance" rule for consensual sex with their patients, lawyers in Canada are permitted by their rather complex professional-conduct and ethical rules to engage in consensual sexual liaisons with their clients, but only so long as there is "informed consent" by the client and the relationship won't harm the client's interests.
By contrast to the American Bar Association, members of the Canadian Bar Association voted against a blanket ban on sex with their clients -- and opted not to explicitly deal with the subject -- when they overhauled their ethics bible in 2004.
Yet because clients in emotion-fraught family law cases are generally considered more apt to be "vulnerable," many lawyers deem personal relationships with such clients to be off-limits.
All law society investigations are kept strictly confidential unless and until a committee of members concludes there are reasonable grounds to file a "notice of application" for a formal discipline proceeding.
"It should be absolutely clear there is no investigation by the law society of the firm itself or any member of the firm, other than Mr. Hunter," said Sean Weir, national managing partner of Borden Ladner Gervais.
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