The lawyer in this case has been on the legal aid panel since he started his practice and practiced only criminal law. He was responsible for supervising his then-administrative assistant, to whom he delegated all of the Legal Aid billing. He failed to conduct himself in accordance with the integrity of the profession by abdicating his professional responsibility to staff for his legal aid accounts because he failed “to supervise his assistant, [failed] to keep proper time records and [did not review] his accounts facilitate his assistant’s dishonesty”.
The lawyer’s lack of supervision was attributed to his suffering from bipolar disorder type 2 at the time of the misconduct. His disorder is in full remission with medications. Thus, it was found that the lawyer was suspended for four months with a term that required him to provide an updated medical report from his treating psychiatric practitioner six months after his return to practice.
Law Society of Ontario v Miller, 2019 ONLSTH 106.
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