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REGIONAL WRAP-UP Winnipeg lawyer hit by scam T he fleecing of a Winnipeg-based lawyer by a foreign fraudster has set off alarm bells in Manitoba's legal community. The Law Society of Manito- ba has issued a warning to the more than 2,000 practising lawyers in the province to beware of scam artists based in China or Japan requesting help with debt col- lection. Allan Fineblit, CEO of the law society, says the victim was a sole practitioner who agreed to help a woman collect a debt of $150,000 she claimed was owed to her company. The lawyer sent a de- mand letter to the debtor and soon af- ter received the payment in full in the form of a certified cheque. He informed his client who requested he send her the money immediately because she was in a cash crunch. He cashed the cheque, took off his fee, and wired her the money. A few days later, his financial institution called to inform him the cheque had been forged. Luckily for the lawyer, whose identity is not being released publicly, he had in- surance through the law society and was only out the $5,000 deductible. In order to ensure the lawyer's real clients weren't put at risk, the law society's insurer im- mediately replaced the money in his trust account. Since the successful scam, Fineblit says more than a dozen lawyers in Winnipeg and in rural areas of the province have been contacted by suspected fraudsters with a strikingly similar tale. None of them have agreed to take on the work, he says. Fineblit says the law society had been aware of similar scams occurring in other provinces earlier in the year and had alerted its members "but not every- body paid attention." He says it's not just lawyers who are being targeted by scam artists. Virtually everybody with an e-mail account has received pleas from wealthy foreign dig- nitaries promising lucrative payouts to people who will help them with a press- ing financial issue. Bruce King, managing partner of Pit- blado LLP, says Manitoba lawyers need to learn from the sole practitioner's plight to ensure history doesn't repeat itself. "Fraudsters are trying to use law- yers as unknowing dupes as they per- petuate frauds. In the past, Manitoba lawyers may have thought these orga- nized frauds wouldn't affect them, they were only occurring in other jurisdic- tions. They thought they were immune to [fraudsters] because [Manitoba] is a smaller market and has a smaller bar. This is a wake-up call," he says. — GK IP bulk up at heenan Blaikie T he 11 lawyers and patent and trademark agents from Ivor M. Hughes' law firm, are joining the ranks of Heenan Blaikie. The merger was finalized Dec. 1. Heenan Blaikie national co- managing partner Norman Ba- cal told Canadian Lawyer his firm had been looking to ex- pand its IP practice, particularly in the pharma area. "We've been growing dynamically. The greatest challenge is finding the expertise," he says, adding currently "There's an aw- ful lot of Canadian [IP] litigation." The firm's desire to expand cou- pled with an approach from head- hunter Michael Cooper was the gen- esis of the merger, says Bacal. "For us it starts with chemistry and we dis- covered fairly early that it was work- ing," he says of the discussions with Hughes' team — not to mention that most of them are, well, chemists too. The merger also gives Hughes' group more flexibility and resources. "This merger with Heenan Blai- kie is the best way to continue doing the work we love," says Hughes. "Our teams share a passion for offering creative and imaginative solutions to protect our clients' intellectual prop- erty. Our clients will now also benefit from Heenan Blaikie's national per- spective and expertise in other im- portant practice areas." The Hughes team remains in its Thornhill office, north of Toronto, CENTRAL CANADA until the Heenan Blaikie Toronto of- fice moves to the Bay Adelaide Centre in August. Heenan Blaikie now has more than 480 lawyers in nine offices in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec. Most of that growth has been organic, notes Bacal. In the last five years the firm has had two mini- mergers: this one with Ivor Hughes and another about five years ago in which 16 lawyer from Genest Murray joined the firm. Integrating groups of lawyers of that size into the firm "isn't the same as adding a 200-law- yer firm," which could lead to con- flict, he says. Hughes' group includes Neil Hughes, Marcelo Sarkis, Sam Tekie, Kitt Sinden, Rick Tuzi, Francis Ng- Cheng-Hin, Jeffrey Stewart, Carl Scott, Jenene Roberts, and Evegny Amelchenkov. — GAIL J. COHEN gcohen@clbmedia.ca www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JANU AR Y 2009 9