Attorney Misconduct, Canada, Legal Ethics

The View From Up North: The Wisdom Of Calling The Law Society A 'Turd'

Insulting the body that's disciplining you is not a wise idea -- for your pocketbook, or for advancing the valid reform proposals you might have.

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Big Trouble in Little China is one of my favourite movies. It’s campy and it’s goofy. The good guy, Jack Burton, has a high opinion of himself, but constantly does stupid things meant to save the day, which usually have the opposite effect. He definitely has it within himself to be a hero, if only he made better decisions.

***Spoiler Alert***

At the climax of BTLC, Jack stares down the bad guy, David Lo Pan. He grabs his trusty knife, takes what he thinks is careful aim, and throws it at Lo Pan. He misses by a mile. Lo Pan picks up the knife. Now it’s his turn. Lo Pan is an ancient super baddie, so Jack is cooked like cabbage, right? Lo Pan whips the knife at the hero, but he miraculously snatches the knife out of midair and with a flick of the wrist whips it back at Lo Pan. The knife lodges in the bad guy’s forehead, killing him.

Jack turns to the stunned heroine. She is speechless. Jack actually got it right.

“It’s all in the reflexes,” he says, coolly.

The lesson: Jack had the only tool he needed to beat the bad guy. He simply needed to trust himself and use it correctly. That’s the theme for today’s column: in order to win, the hero must use the correct tool, correctly.

Meet Paul Robson. He’s a Toronto-based lawyer who’s had quite a run lately. In May 2014, he was disbarred by the Law Society of Upper Canada for intentionally concealing $1.4 million from his creditors before his bankruptcy discharge.

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Earlier this year, an appeal panel overturned the disbarment, allowing Robson to keep his license to practice law. That’s where things turned really nasty. Robson wanted reimbursement for his legal costs—$750,000. In the course of fighting for his costs, he sent this to the appeal panel: “You as [a self-regulatory organization] currently operate as a turd,” he wrote on January 28, 2015. “A stinking steaming giant hypocritically confliected [sic] turd at the intersection of Queen and Uniisity [sic].” In a series of other messages, he also apparently referred to the appeal division as “f*ckers”, sent a video of a cat playing dead (which supposedly represented how the Law Society deals with the issue of access to justice), and accused the Law Society of being an accessory to murder.

That’s a lot of stuff. Let’s dissect it.

First off — holy smokes, it costs a lot to defend a disciplinary matter. How does a guy who just declared bankruptcy pay off a $750k legal bill? Also, most lawyers are dedicated to ethical practice, but if anyone needs a little more incentive, the financial cost of facing discipline should provide an extra nudge to toe the line.

Second, I’m a little disappointed with the spelling mistakes. Unlike Charles Barkley, lawyers are role models. Surely Robson had to know his correspondence was going to make it to the public, and that young lawyers might read it. I don’t want younger lawyers to think sloppy spelling is okay. To be fair, maybe his iPhone “auto-corrected” conflicted into “confliected” and University into “Uniisity”. Stupid machines. On the other hand, a lot of lawyers I know read things two or three times before sending, just to prevent an overzealous auto-correct from making them look careless. For any younger lawyers reading this, that’s a pretty good habit to get into.

Third, Robson just went through an insanely expensive pair of disciplinary hearings. Now he’s calling the Law Society a turd (which he spelled correctly, by the way) and a bunch of f*ckers? Shouldn’t he be a little worried about another disciplinary hearing for conduct unbecoming a lawyer? I would be. Did I mention disciplinary hearings are insanely expensive?

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The best part of this — Robson has turned the whole thing into a crusade. He thinks the Law Society should not discipline its members. That should be done by a completely independent body. I happen to agree with him on that. But, I won’t be calling the Law Society a turd to get my point across.

Nor will I be accusing the Law Society of accessory to murder. From what I can deduce, here is the reason for that accusation: if the Law Society took the time and money it spent on disciplinary hearings and put it towards access to justice, more poor people would be able to obtain a lawyer in times of crisis. He cites the horrible case of Zahra Abdille, a woman who was murdered, along with her two sons, by her husband. In that case, Abdille had been fighting for custody of her children and wanted to get an emergency court order. She didn’t qualify for legal aid and apparently couldn’t afford a lawyer.

This is a tragic case, obviously, and access to justice is a prime concern for many lawyers, but accusing the Law Society of accessory to murder because Zahra Abdillie didn’t qualify for legal aid is several steps beyond unreasonable, in my opinion.

There is also another serious flaw in Robson’s argument. If the government set up an independent body to administer lawyer discipline wouldn’t it merely move the Law Society’s discipline budget to the new sheriff? It certainly wouldn’t give the Law Society the same budget and tell it to put the money formerly earmarked for discipline towards access to justice. Sadly, that’s not how the world turns.

I’m sure Robson genuinely cares about access to justice. I’m sure he believes that it is an inherent confliect (sorry, conflict) for the Law Society (which is run by lawyers) to mete out lawyer discipline. He has certainly stuck his neck out to make both those points. He might even be considered heroic in some circles.

But, it’s all in the reflexes. If you want to slay the bad guy, you’ve got to do it the right way. Robson has the right tool set, obviously. He has a law degree and the ability to advocate. He has a forum (the Toronto Star, no less). But, calling your colleagues vulgar names simply makes the profession look bad. That’s akin to throwing the knife at your fellow good guys. What hero does that?

A key requirement of change is convincing enough people of its merits. I firmly believe his tactics will turn off lawyers and other key people who are interested in improving access to justice. They won’t line up to support him; they’ll back away from him. If he truly wants change, that’s another errant throw of the knife.

Additionally, accusing the Law Society of accessory to murder makes him look like a crank. With the possible exception of The Donald (next POTUS, yay!), cranks don’t get support.

Okay, earnest confession. I really wanted to get a Jack Burton quote into my column. I may have tortured it a little bit. Sorry.

But, the point still remains: effectively lawyering requires you to use the correct tools, correctly. There is a fine line between using your tools to provide heroic advocacy and using your tools in a way that kills credibility and makes the legal profession look bad.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a reflexive week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Keybridge Legal Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm that places lawyers in law firms and in-house roles throughout North America. You can contact Steve at steve@keybridgerecruiting.com. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@IMRecruitR), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).

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