Comments on: Meeting the Man Behind “Lawyers are Rats”

By: Larry Lee

Larry Lee — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:07:55 +0000

We were victims of mortgage fraud. We continue to fight to get our personal property, removed from our home with no notice to us.
We were not served notice of court date. We did not have a lawyer at the time, but the bank’s lawyer said we did. This lawyer has since denied the bank’s lawyers claims, saying “…never corresponded, never went on record…”, yet all information was sent to him to give to us. We were left out of the loop entirely.
Legal: another lawyer, through his misunderstanding of RE law, gave away our home for what was owing on it.
another lawyer, in the same law firm, attempted to correct the problem, and made us Trustees instead of owners which muddied title and entitled our home to someone else. This still has to be fixed. another lawyer listened and said pay him his retainer and he would motion to put sufficient mortgage funds in the hands of the court in order to proceed against the bank, inform the lawyers for the bank that he was representing us, and motion not to remove furniture from the home in question as more than adequate funds were available to cover the mortgage amount. 12 – 15 court dates were ignored by this lawyer, and he never did show up for a motion appearance. In the meantime our furniture was removed, no motion was ever raised, we cannot get our retainer back, and so on. This lawyer then hired another lawyer who required almost $10,000 to close the mortgage. This lawyer did not clear the title, nor did he keep us informed what was going on. We still do not have an honest accounting of what we paid, or clear title, but he told our bank that everything was ok and done…he lied.
This is a brief and incomplete event callander of a horrible 4 years spent while my daughter (having environmental allergies) was removed from her home, everything she knew was taken including her collection of books, videos, etc….her life is now sleeping on an inflatable rubber mattress while we struggle to get back to some sort of normal life, and trying to keep her marks up in high school. (wants to be a brain surgeon)
There is much more to this story, but we are being cut off by the Law Society, the courts, the judge who made the decision based on incorrect knowledge, and the Lands & Titles Office who said we gave our home away. From our prospective we have to believe Philip Slayton and the statement by MacLean’s…lawyers are rats. Thank you for reading this. Maybe you should talk to a 14 year old girl and her mother to really get an off the wall talk about what they have been through,,,ask about having to live in a ’93 Mazda Protege sub compact with Mother, Father, Daughter, and 2 small dogs because of being evicted with 10 minutes notice. There is a lot more to this story, and we are writing it in book format.

By: Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem

Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:02:06 +0000

Some lawyers abuse their power. Perhaps they feel they are above the law. When they do, the impact on their victims can be devastating. When lawyers who act as bullies and use the legal system to feed their own greed, become judges, there is little recourse to hold them accountable. Raising awareness of those who act in unethical ways helps set the benchmark for ethical practices. I would like to be part of the process of raising the standard for all lawyers and judges, but especially those in family law situations.

By: Rob Harvie

Rob Harvie — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:40:14 +0000

Gail – as a lawyer who graduated from U.B.C. some 23 years ago, I can tell you that his thoughts are far from representative.

For example, I, and many lawyers in Canada, have undertaken an alternate form of dispute resolution called “Collaborative Practice” where we actually sign contracts preventing us from going to Court for our clients, to limit our representation to encouraging agreement.

Particularly outside of the major centres (I’m in Lethbridge) lawyers continue to practice under the clear umbrella of ethical behavior, and I believe that the thrust of his book and the MacLeans article is, at best, deceptive and misleading.

There are problems – but I’ll tell you one thing. The notion that lawyers should be more willing to do “pro-bono work” and be less concerned about billing is offensive in the extreme. Relative to other professions, particuly in small centres, lawyer salaries have lagged behind increases in teachers, nurses, dentists, and the notion that lawyers should shoulder the burden of facilitating access to justice is off-base. If the public feels full access to justice is a “right”, the millions of Canadians paying tax should be asked to do so, not the mere thousands of lawyers.

Anyhow – I love the profession, I enjoy the challenge, and feel the best of our profession continues to make what we do a worthwhile and noble endeavor.

Good luck in law school.