The lawyers who were put on the road to perdition by money range from the hilarious (for everyone except the victims) to the mysterious (especially for the victims). A humble Vancouver real estate practitioner mishandled one contractor client's files so spectacularly that in 2005 the British Columbia Law Society needed to pay $32.5 million in compensation to those who were wiped out in the mishandling. As far as everyone including Slayton and the cops can make out, the case involved no swindle, and no party to the mess walked away with a fortune. "It shows how easy it was to screw up," the hapless lawyer told Slayton. Residents of Vancouver will be relieved to hear that the lawyer has been disbarred.
By contrast with this lame fellow, Bob Donaldson seems a bigger-than-life character from a Tom Wolfe novel. In the 1980s, Donaldson was a securities and corporate specialist at Toronto's prestigious Blake, Cassels & Graydon. Donaldson docketed 2,800 hours of work a year, perpetually on the phone or in a plane, able to book just one hour a week for face time with his wife. He wore suspenders in bright colours, smoked cigars, and kept two secretaries working in shifts. In other words, he was the very definition of high flyer.
Then one of the secretaries blew the whistle. Donaldson was keeping small sums of client money for himself and billing clients for expenses not incurred on their files. It was penny ante stuff, particularly measured against the humungous fees Donaldson brought into the firm. But the Law Society of Upper Canada suspended him for two years, and Blakes, mortified by the embarrassment, cut Donaldson loose.
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