The legal regulator recorded a strong success rate in resolving complaints over the past year
The Law Society of Ontario’s professional regulation division has released its 2024 End-of-Year Report, which highlighted its success rate in resolving complaints over the past year.
The legal regulator surpassed the National Discipline Standards with regard to investigation resolving or referring complaints for disciplinary or remedial response. The Law Society addressed 91 percent and 94 percent of complaints within 12 months and 18 months against the standards of 80 percent and 90 percent, respectively.
Among the 6,500 complaints received in 2024, just 4 percent involved lawyers and 3.8 percent paralegals. As per the Law Society, a small percentage of these complaints necessitated formal regulatory action; the majority of complaints were low risk and rapidly resolved without a formal investigation. High-risk complaints were also handled quickly to avoid further harm.
The use of interlocutory suspensions increased in the past year as incidents of apparent serious misconduct – particularly financial misconduct – soared. More summary hearings were also held to incentivize licensees to cooperate and respond at risk of suspension. The Law Society noted that its investigative powers were limited under the Law Society Act; it needed a licensee’s cooperation to access many financial records key to a comprehensive risk assessment.
This year, the legal regulator indicated that it planned to seek greater powers to access trust account records from financial institutions; this would facilitate the prompt evaluation of trust account activity and action to protect the public. The Law Society will update stakeholders and the public on the status of the plan.
The Office of the Commissioner noted that it is expected to clear its backlog of requests for review by December as it maintains the current three-month contract counsel role and fills the new nine-month contract counsel post. From December 2023 to the end of 2024, the backlog dropped from about 17 months to approximately 12 months.
