Real estate lawyers are immuned to prosecution?
Why do Ontario lawyers who steal rarely go to jail? They treat client trust accounts as their personal piggy banks, facilitate multi-million-dollar frauds and drain retirement savings of the elderly. So are corruptions among city officials and developers with deep pockets? No. We have no clue in this respect, merely asking a question of public interest. While most lawyers caught stealing from their clients are reprimanded, suspended or disbarred by the profession’s regulator, the vast majority avoid criminal charges, a Star investigation reveals. Torstar News Service found that more than 230 lawyers sanctioned for criminal-like activity by the Law Society of Upper Canada in the last decade, stole, defrauded or diverted some $61 million held in trust funds for clients. Fewer than one in five were charged criminally. Most avoided jail. “I truly believe there are two laws — a set of rules and regulations for lawyers and a different set for everyone else,” said Richard Bikowski, who was f...