Canadian Lawyer

based class action lawyer who is most famous for helping to secure the $1.9-billion residential schools settlement. Merchant's law firm, Merchant Law Group LLP, employs numerous lawyers and has offices across Canada and is most famous for launching dozens of class action lawsuits, especially over faulty products. Yet, since the mid1980s, Merchant has been found guilty of conduct unbecoming a lawyer five times, most recently last year. His sins included sending out misleading solicitation letters to potential class members of lawsuits, saying anyone who signed up would not have to pay costs when, in fact, they might have to; of ignoring a court order to pay a party monies from his law firm's trust account, and then which has only 1,500 lawyers. "I would say that the law society has not dealt as effectively with Mr. Merchant as the courts have done in terms of addressing specifics of his conduct and in terms of imposing appropriate consequences on his behaviour," says Woolley. B ut few recent cases of law society laxness can top the Jack King affair. Called to the bar in 1980, King is a family law lawyer who became a partner at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP, one of the largest firms in Winnipeg whose origins date back to 1887. In the spring of 2003, King was finishing up the divorce of Alex Chapman whom he invited to a local bar, then urged his client to visit a web site called "LAW SOCIETIES ARE EXTREMELY SLApdASh ABOUT ALL ASpECTS OF ThEIR dISCIpLINARY pROCEEdINGS." phILIp SLAYTON pocketing those funds himself; and of willfully breaching a court order for paying sums into court. Moreover, in a series of court cases, Merchant has also been reprimanded by judges, one of whom said Merchant offered "false testimony attempting to provide an evidentiary basis for a nonexistent agreement." In fact, Merchant was once convicted for criminal mischief while working for Colin Thatcher, the former premier of Saskatchewan who was later found guilty of arranging the murder of his wife. Alice Woolley has studied Merchant's track record and believes — despite its rulings against him — Saskatchewan's law society has been too lenient on him, especially when compared to what judges have said about Merchant's behaviour. She surmises this might be because he is a big fish in the small pond of Saskatchewan's legal community, darkcavern.com and to look for pictures of someone called "White Princess." When Chapman finally checked it out, he discovered nude pictures of Lori Douglas, King's wife who was also a lawyer and partner at the same firm. King also sent dozens of these same pictures to Chapman. King then set up two rendezvous in restaurants so Chapman and Douglas could meet. King made it clear he wanted Chapman to come to their home and have sex with Douglas, sending e-mails and phone messages encouraging Chapman to comply. It remains unclear how much Douglas knew of what King was up to, although evidence indicates she was unaware of the full extent of his actions. Chapman later said (in a complaint he lodged with the law society in 2010) he initially played along because he wanted King to finish his divorce. Finally, upset at how things were progressing, and perhaps seeing an opportunity to make some money, Chapman retained Ian Histed, a Winnipeg lawyer who runs Downtown Legal Action. Histed wrote to the law firm saying King was "sexually harassing" Chapman. TDS confronted King with the allegations, who admitted they were true. He was asked to leave the firm. No one reported the matter to the law society. King broke the news to Douglas about what he'd done — she was devastated but stayed with him. Through Histed, Chapman demanded $100,000 from King. In response, King hired William Gange, a Winnipegbased litigator and a law society bencher. Eventually they settled on $25,000 and the destruction of the incriminating photos and e-mails. Saying he was suffering from depression and stress, King stopped practising law for a few months and sought psychiatric counseling. But in the middle of the settlement talks between Histed and Gange, Histed was informed by the law society that it had begun an inquiry into him based on a complaint submitted by one of his former clients — a mentally unstable woman fighting to prevent her child from being removed from her care. The law society claims there was no relation between the timing of this complaint and the King affair. The investigating lawyer once worked at TDS and knew King and Douglas. When Histed's former client's complaint came before the law society's complaints investigations committee, Histed objected, saying that TDS lawyers sitting on the committee might have a conflict of interest. Allan Fineblit, CEO of the law society, tells Canadian Lawyer Histed did not initially spell out why this might be, and did not reference the King matter. Nonetheless, the committee decided charges of professional misconduct should be laid against Histed. In the spring of 2004, as part of a motion to have the case against him thrown out, Histed detailed to the law society what King had done in order to demonstrate why three members of the complaints committee sitting in judgment of him had conflicts of interest: two were partners at King's former firm and the other, Gange, had been www.CANADIAN L a w ye r m a g . c o m Jan uary 2013 29

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