Lawyer who submitted ‘false or misleading’ documents to B.C. Supreme Court gets 10-year ban

A lawyer in B.C.’s Interior has agreed to resign from the province’s law society and refrain from practising law for at least 10 years after being found to have committed misconduct on two separate client files.

Leonard Hil Marriott has been a lawyer since 1992, but his most recent stint as a member of the Law Society of B.C. began in 2015, according to an undertaking to the discipline committee Marriott made last month.

In the undertaking, the Vernon lawyer admitted to the misconduct he had already been deemed to have committed by two separate law society hearing panels.

The first instance of misconduct stemmed from Marriott’s handling in 2019 of a “wills and estates” matter involving an elderly client whose spouse had died.

The hearing panel in that matter found that Marriott had “failed to provide his client with the quality of service expected of a competent lawyer” by filing an incorrect form with the land title office.

Marriott’s filing ended up severing his client’s joint tenancy, rather than placing the home in her name as surviving joint tenant, according to the undertaking.

Marriott also filed materials in B.C. Supreme Court that “he knew contained false or misleading information,” the document reads.

“He failed to disclose the existence of a will for the client’s deceased spouse, identify other potential beneficiaries, accurately represent the value of the estate, and advise the court that a related notice of dispute had been filed,” it continues. “He failed to ensure the materials were forthright and accurate, and to take appropriate steps to rectify and correct the information and materials filed.”

The second instance of misconduct stemmed from another wills and estates file that Marriott worked on from 2018 to 2021.

The hearing panel in that matter found Marriott had failed “to provide the quality of service required of a competent lawyer regarding the preparation, drafting and execution of (his client’s) will.”

Specifically, he failed to “obtain, confirm and/or correctly document instructions from his client,” and to review the final draft of the will with the client.

The hearing panel also found that Marriott had “pre-taken” $71,149.12 in executor fees “without signed releases from the beneficiary or its representatives waiving the passing of the respondent’s accounts or obtaining a court order authorizing payment.”

The panel ordered him to return those fees, which it deemed were not “fair and reasonable.”

In his undertaking, Marriott admitted to the misconduct and agreed to resign from the law society by July 1. He will be prohibited from practising law in Canada for a minimum of 10 years after that date, and may not apply for admission into a foreign law society or similar regulatory body without first notifying the Law Society of B.C.