While I was googling about another subject this morning, I unearthed a gem! This has made my day!
Remember when I said our Law Society's Director of Insurance had been in her position since 1992 (the longest in Canada by the way) and she has been the laziest in terms of "educating" the lawyers in our province pertaining to Loss Prevention and Risk Management techniques. Unlike other provinces' Law Societies larger and smaller than ours, she has posted absolutely NOTHING on our Law Society's website pertaining to Loss Prevention and Risk Management techniques. NOTHING at all. ZILCH.
The insurance defense lawyer she hires most of the time is a good buddy of hers and a fellow Law Society Committee member. In 2010, he was the Chairperson who coordinated the revisions to The Law Society's Code of Professional Conduct. Whereas other provinces large and small have included clauses/sections/wording pertaining to "limited scope retainer agreement" (please note that Full Legal Representation is the public's expectation from lawyers), our Chairperson didn't include any clauses/sections/wording whatsoever pertaining to "limited scope retainer agreement" presumably because the Director of Insurance was too lazy to give him the pertinent clauses, so again our province's lawyers aren't being educated on limited scope retainers. ZILCH.
Considering that the above two individuals who usually determine whether our province's lawyers should be covered for professional liability insurance when former clients sue their lawyers for legal malpractice, these two amigos of course will cover them since they haven't done anything to educate this province's lawyers. (By the way, part of the mandate of a law society is to educate its lawyers.) Lawyers who have been turned down for insurance coverage would sue the Law Society (and win) for not educating them. See what laziness has cost the Insurer so far?
The Director of Insurance chortled when she wrote to me, "Mr. JDD, in our province, it's not mandatory for lawyers to give their clients a "written" retainer agreement; an "oral" retainer is perfectly acceptable. As for what other provinces' law societies do to educate their lawyers, that's inapplicable to our province's lawyers". Your two former lawyers conformed to the standard of duty of our province and they're not liable for legal malpractice." She had all her bases covered, right??!! Dead wrong!!!!
This morning, I discovered that all provinces in Canada belong to an organization called the Federation of Law Societies and they have a Model Code of Professional Conduct that they expect ALL law societies to eventually adopt so that clients can expect the same ethics and practices no matter where in Canada they live. Some provinces have adopted about 90% of the Model Code which states "Reducing to writing the discussions and agreement with the client about the limited scope retainer assists the lawyer and client in understanding the limitations of the service to be provided and any risks of the retainer." The Model Code made this "written" requirement mandatory. Other provinces viewed the "limitations" requirement as having to CLEARLY state in the written retainer agreement what constitutes the scope of legal services to be provided by a lawyer AND more importantly, what legal services are EXCLUDED.
Finding the Model Code of Professional Conduct (for ALL of Canada) means that my two former lawyers will be judged on their conformance to the standard of duty of Canadian lawyers and NOT the lawyers of our province!
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