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	Lawyer Overbills Clients by $400k By Alexandra Paul Winnipeg Free Press May 5, 2011 http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/lawyer-overbills-clients-by-400k-121305414.html A Winnipeg lawyer overbilled survivors of residential schools who were owed compensation for years of physical and sexual abuse by nearly $400,000. The lawyer is now in legal hot water with both the Law Society of Manitoba and a federal adjudicator acting for residential school survivors. The details of the case came to public attention in a written ruling from the Court of Queen's Bench after the lawyer challenged an order from the law society to pay $388,477.50 into a trust account by April 9. It was a bid he lost. The lawyer does not deny he overcharged 26 residential school clients. Yet, he ignored an order from the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat to refund his clients once Ottawa discovered his overbilling. He also never challenged the authority or the jurisdiction of the adjudicators to reduce or disqualify his fees, nor did he appeal the decision. Faced with the apparent defiance, Ottawa's chief adjudicator, Daniel Ish, filed a formal complaint against the lawyer with the Law Society of Manitoba. The Free Press can publish the findings of the ruling but is forbidden by the Legal Professions Act from reporting the lawyer's name while he awaits a law society disciplinary hearing on misconduct charges. Some of the money he received from survivors went to buy land and apartments in Israel, but the lawyer holds few investments in Manitoba, raising suspicions he could be a flight risk. In the ruling, Justice Shane Perlmutter dismissed the lawyer's court challenge. The lawyer had pleaded for leniency and asked for an extension to the law society's deadline to pay the money back. In a 30-page written ruling, the court suggested there were too many things that didn't add up. "(The lawyer) professed to be able to net $200,000 in fees over a four-month period. However, he has negligible assets in Manitoba. He has substantial assets in Israel which, at least in part, he acknowledges were purchased with fees generated from his residential school clients," the judgment reads. There was a $100,000 investment in a land company in Israel, chunks of real estate plus seven apartments in that country. The ruling then muses on what might happen if the lawyer was shown leniency. "Should (the lawyer) choose to leave the jurisdiction, or dissipate his assets... Those clients would be left without any recourse," the ruling reads. The judge did not believe the lawyer's protest of financial hardship. "I'm not satisfied (the lawyer) has showed that he exercised all the due diligence in attempting to raise the funds... I am further concerned about the protection of the public... Particularly when it appears the majority of the assets are outside the jurisdiction," the judgment read. The ruling is the second strike against the lawyer. Last summer, the law society suspended the same lawyer for 70 days after he pleaded guilty to misconduct involving a retainer he'd failed to properly deposit in a trust account. The law society is satisfied with the restrictions it has imposed on the lawyer's practice. Supervisors cannot allow any payments out of his trust fund in excess of what an adjudicator orders and he must repay the money on schedule. The lawyer was not under any restrictions when the residential school billings became a problem. All the money will be paid into the trust by May 30. The judgment does not fully explain how the lawyer overbilled the clients. Under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, Canada pays the claimant's award and an extra 15 per cent of the award as a contribution towards legal fees. A lawyer may charge up to an additional 15 per cent, to come out of the claimant's award, for a maximum of 30 per cent. Contact: alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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