LAW REPORTER
A Law Society of Upper Canada tribunal is mulling a request to toss out misconduct charges against prominent lawyer Joe Groia for allegedly "abusive" behaviour while defending an accused in the Bre-X Minerals Ltd. insider trading trial.
The three-member Law Society panel reserved judgment yesterday on a motion by Mr. Groia's lawyer, Earl Cherniak, that the case against Mr. Groia be dismissed because it is "flawed" and unfair.
Mr. Cherniak told the hearing that the disciplinary charges for incivility were "vague" and "incomplete" and that the Law Society's investigators choose not to spend $6,000 on transcripts of the Bre-X trial or even request that Mr. Groia hand over his copy.
But Tom Curry, a lawyer acting for the Law Society, told the panel investigators didn't need the transcripts. The relevant excerpts, he said, were presented when lawyers for the Ontario Securities Commission unsuccessfully tried to oust the trial judge in the Bre-X case for failing to restrain Mr. Groia, and when the case went before the Ontario Court of Appeal.
In comments to The Globe and Mail yesterday, Mr. Groia said the disciplinary case had already caused a chill among lawyers, who must sometimes criticize prosecutors in order to defend clients as he says he had to during the Bre-X trial.
"I think any time a defence lawyer stands up in court, and as part of his defence of his client must attack the prosecution ... I think they will be hyper-cautious," he said.
During the hearing, Mr. Curry dismissed the argument that defence lawyers should be given wide latitude in criminal cases because the stakes for their clients are so high, especially with the possibility of a wrongful conviction: "You don't get to behave uncivilly to protect someone from a wrongful conviction."