B.C. courts have recently ordered three people or businesses not to engage in unauthorized practice of law, while three others have consented to refrain, B.C.’s legal profession regulator says.
“The Law Society of British Columbia acts to protect the public against individuals who hold themselves out to be lawyers when they are not,” the society said. “These individuals and businesses put the public at risk by performing unregulated and uninsured legal services or misrepresenting themselves as lawyers.”
BC Supreme Court in October 2019 prohibited Mar Dolar and Global Fingerprinting Services Canada Ltd. of Vancouver from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law as defined under the province’s Legal Profession Act.
Anant Bhatia consented Jan. 9 to an order permanently prohibiting him from falsely representing himself as a lawyer or counsel or using any other title suggesting he is a qualified lawyer.
B.C.’s Supreme Court Jan. 20 issued an order prohibiting Victoria's Jeremy Maddock from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law or from commencing, prosecuting or defending a proceeding in any court on behalf of someone else, the society said.
Maddock has contested the society’s stated role in protecting the public interest.
He said on social media Oct. 28 that the society is protecting market access, establishing barriers to profession entry, engaging in turf wars and is in conflict with its own mandate to protect access to justice.
The three other undertakings are from three others the society did not name. Such undertakings are not made public to give those people a chance to comply.
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