Post by litigator on Aug 9, 2007 18:56:50 GMT -5
'Rat' ruckus drowns out real debate
Delivery Over The Top, But Call For Reform Overdue
Jim Middlemiss
Financial Post
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Are lawyers rats? That seems to be the big question in light of Maclean's softball Q&A interview with lawyer Philip Slayton, author of Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada's Legal Profession.
The magazine illustrated the cover with a selection of photos depicting lawyers and captions suggesting they engage in nefarious conduct. Sure, some lawyers are rats and steal from clients and some doctors are incompetent; some priests are pedophiles and some contractors are crooks. But
that doesn't mean the lot of them have such traits, which Slayton readily admits on the first page of his book, where he says, "only a few lawyers are dishonest."
His book does not paint the entire profession with the same brush. Nonetheless, his comments have rankled the upper echelon of the legal guard, which came out blasting with the usual hackneyed responses: "yellow journalism," "tarnished the reputation of thousands of professionals who are
honest," and "recklessly erroneous attack."
Canadian Bar Association president J. Parker McCarthy condemned the cover in the "strongest possible way," calling it a "broadside against the legal profession that doesn't tell the whole story."
Law Society treasurer GavinMacKenzie
weighed in noting "it's time for us to stop ignoring these insults and accepting these sneers."
Sure, the magazine's cover language is entirely over the top, Kopytoesque if you will, but what magazine that makes money on cover sales doesn't push the edge? (For those under 40, this is a reference to the infamous words muttered by now disbarred lawyer Harry Kopyto: "The courts and the RCMP are sticking
so close together you'd think they were put together with Krazy Glue.")
Slayton, a former Bay Street lawyer and law dean, has stellar credentials to comment on the profession. He's seen it both from Bay Street and the ivory towers of academia. If he's guilty of anything it's that he had the audacity in his book to challenge the status quo and the inconsistency with which legal
regulators mete out punishment to crooked lawyers.
He suggests that full-scale reform is needed and it's time to end self-regulation. Egads, that's blasphemy! Unfortunately that debate is being drowned out over the squealing about rats,
as is the debate about the rising cost of legal services and the resulting lack of access to Canada's judicial system. Maybe it is time to end self-regulation; maybe it isn't.
What it is time to do is put in place stronger protections for
consumers from lawyers who defraud clients and steal their money. The public accepts that the legal profession, like any industry, has its share of bad apples. However, they want to know that the resulting carnage that a crooked lawyer creates is appropriately compensated. Lawyers are insured, but that's only for negligence, not fraud. While some law societies have set up compensation funds to address instances of theft, the sum
available is paltry.
Suggesting that a client's recourse lies in suing the thief after he or she has been disbarred and stripped of an ability to earn a living provides little solace for those who might have lost their life savings. They can ill afford to pay a lawyer, let alone find one that's willing to take on such malpractice cases. That, not the portrayal of rats on a magazine cover, is the essence of the
problem.
Delivery Over The Top, But Call For Reform Overdue
Jim Middlemiss
Financial Post
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Are lawyers rats? That seems to be the big question in light of Maclean's softball Q&A interview with lawyer Philip Slayton, author of Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada's Legal Profession.
The magazine illustrated the cover with a selection of photos depicting lawyers and captions suggesting they engage in nefarious conduct. Sure, some lawyers are rats and steal from clients and some doctors are incompetent; some priests are pedophiles and some contractors are crooks. But
that doesn't mean the lot of them have such traits, which Slayton readily admits on the first page of his book, where he says, "only a few lawyers are dishonest."
His book does not paint the entire profession with the same brush. Nonetheless, his comments have rankled the upper echelon of the legal guard, which came out blasting with the usual hackneyed responses: "yellow journalism," "tarnished the reputation of thousands of professionals who are
honest," and "recklessly erroneous attack."
Canadian Bar Association president J. Parker McCarthy condemned the cover in the "strongest possible way," calling it a "broadside against the legal profession that doesn't tell the whole story."
Law Society treasurer GavinMacKenzie
weighed in noting "it's time for us to stop ignoring these insults and accepting these sneers."
Sure, the magazine's cover language is entirely over the top, Kopytoesque if you will, but what magazine that makes money on cover sales doesn't push the edge? (For those under 40, this is a reference to the infamous words muttered by now disbarred lawyer Harry Kopyto: "The courts and the RCMP are sticking
so close together you'd think they were put together with Krazy Glue.")
Slayton, a former Bay Street lawyer and law dean, has stellar credentials to comment on the profession. He's seen it both from Bay Street and the ivory towers of academia. If he's guilty of anything it's that he had the audacity in his book to challenge the status quo and the inconsistency with which legal
regulators mete out punishment to crooked lawyers.
He suggests that full-scale reform is needed and it's time to end self-regulation. Egads, that's blasphemy! Unfortunately that debate is being drowned out over the squealing about rats,
as is the debate about the rising cost of legal services and the resulting lack of access to Canada's judicial system. Maybe it is time to end self-regulation; maybe it isn't.
What it is time to do is put in place stronger protections for
consumers from lawyers who defraud clients and steal their money. The public accepts that the legal profession, like any industry, has its share of bad apples. However, they want to know that the resulting carnage that a crooked lawyer creates is appropriately compensated. Lawyers are insured, but that's only for negligence, not fraud. While some law societies have set up compensation funds to address instances of theft, the sum
available is paltry.
Suggesting that a client's recourse lies in suing the thief after he or she has been disbarred and stripped of an ability to earn a living provides little solace for those who might have lost their life savings. They can ill afford to pay a lawyer, let alone find one that's willing to take on such malpractice cases. That, not the portrayal of rats on a magazine cover, is the essence of the
problem.