NEW SECURITIES LAW PARTNER AT FMC
Elana Hahn has left international law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP to become a partner at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP.
Hahn joins FMC as a partner in the firm’s securities group at its Toronto office. Previously, she worked at a number of U.S. and British firms in London, England. Her practice covers an array of banking, capital markets, and derivatives matters.
“We are very happy to welcome Elana to our securities group,” said Mike Kaplan, FMC’s managing partner in Toronto.
“She is an experienced capital markets and finance lawyer and brings a wealth of insight and expertise to her practice, which will make her a great addition to our team.”
FORMER LAWYER’S SENTENCE REDUCED
The Ontario Court of Appeal has reduced the fraud sentence for a former lawyer from Innisfil, Ont.
In cutting the sentence to 16 months less time served of eight months from the original penalty of 22 months, the appeal court considered fresh evidence that Myles McLellan had agreed to secure $100,400 through a second mortgage in favour of the victim, Sam Klaiman, as restitution.
“I am satisfied that if the trial judge had before her the fresh evidence demonstrating that the appellant placed a second mortgage on his property in favour of Mr. Klaiman’s company, which interest was not subject to other multilayered security interests, she would have imposed a lower custodial sentence,” Justice Michael Tulloch wrote with his fellow appeal court judges agreeing.
Justice Anne Mullins had earlier convicted McLellan of fraud over $5,000 and two counts of uttering forged documents. The case related to funds deposited in his trust account in February 2006 that were “quickly dispersed for his own financial purposes.”
The Law Society of Upper Canada disbarred McLellan in 2009.
LAO REVIEWING REFUGEE SERVICES
Citing continuing funding challenges, Legal Aid Ontario is reviewing its delivery of refugee law services.
LAO has already drafted a consultation paper on refugee legal aid services that proposes a new model for delivering them. As a result, it will be consulting on its suggestions between Nov. 5 and Dec. 10. Registration for the consultations is available on LAO’s web site.
In justifying the need for change, LAO referred to new federal legislation that reforms the refugee determination system in Canada. “This new legislation, coupled with rising costs, requires LAO to reassess some of the basic assumptions about how refugee legal aid services are provided in Ontario,” LAO said last week.
The consultations follow changes LAO already made to the certificate system this year when it announced plans to reduce the amount of money it spends on refugee and immigration certificates by $1 million in a bid to tackle its deficit.
POLL RESULTS
The results of the latest Law Times online poll are in.
It appears the recommendations from the Law Society of Upper Canada’s articling task force aren’t very popular with many Law Times readers. According to the poll, 74 per cent of respondents said the task force hadn’t gotten it right when it recommended a law practice program as an alternative to articling.
The poll comes as the legal profession has been vigorously debating the report’s recommendations. At Convocation on Oct. 25, law society benchers deferred a decision on the proposal for a law practice program until Nov. 22. Many benchers cited the need for more time to consider the report.
