Vernon lawyer Leonard Marriott.

Image Credit: North Valley Law

A Vernon lawyer who "utterly failed" to complete a relatively straight forward legal paperwork for an elderly client and then filed false information to the court has been found to have committed professional misconduct.

According to a Feb. 6 Law Society of BC decision, Leonard Hil Marriott had a "pattern of ineffective communication" with his client and other lawyers and made a "patently obvious" mistake by filing incorrect documents.

"Once he made the error, (Marriott's) entire course of action was to attempt to resolve the error without letting anyone, whether that be his client, the court or opposing counsel, become aware of the details," the Law Society said in the decision. "It is particularly noteworthy to the Panel that even after (Marriott), on his own admission, was indisputably aware of the fundamental errors in the application for a grant of administration, he took no steps to rectify those errors."

The decision said Marriott filed numerous materials to the court that were false.

"(Marriott) knew that he had made false representations to the court which would mislead the court on a vital point," the decision read.

This is the second time Marriott has been found to have committed professional misconduct. In December, he was ordered to pay back $70,000 of a client's money after he made multiple errors in his "sloppy" handling of a $1.2-million estate.

This current case involves an 81-year-old Shuswap woman whose husband had recently died.

In 2019, the unnamed woman contacted Marriott, who owns North Valley Law, and hired him to draw up a will, organize a power of attorney and remove her late husband from the title of the property.

From the get-go, he filed the wrong form and then made more errors trying to correct it.

"It is obvious that even a cursory review of the forms with his client would have revealed the error," the Law Society ruled. "The simplest of communication would have revealed the multiple errors in the materials filed by the (Marriott) with the court... he failed to communicate effectively with his client or her power of attorney, and never explained how he was going to set about correcting his error."

The decision said Marriott became a licensed lawyer in 1993, but since then, the 62-year-old lawyer has only practiced law for about three years.

The woman's late husband had left a will, but Marriott failed to disclose its existence, or that the late husband had two children by a previous marriage.

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The Law Society said he was unable to provide an explanation as to why, once he knew about the two sons, he didn't tell the court and said there was a "clear inconsistency" in his testimony concerning the issue.

The Law Society claimed he didn't review documents with his client.

"He could not explain how he would have missed such glaring errors if he had reviewed the documents," the decision read.

It goes on to describe another error as "astonishing."

"(Marriott's) evidence was replete with unresponsive and evasive answers," the Law Society said.

The legal regulator describes other answers as making "no sense" and being "nonsensical."

At one point, the lawyer blamed COVID for delays, although the pandemic had not yet started.

His elderly client eventually got another lawyer.

"Even once he was contacted by (another lawyer), the confusion, which could have been cleared up very easily, remained for months," the decision read.

"Throughout his evidence, (Marriott) prevaricated on key points, was inconsistent within his own evidence, did not answer questions directly, added incongruous and disingenuous statements, and gave answers that did not accord with other independent evidence, including documentary evidence and evidence of the other witnesses," the decision said.

Ultimately, the Law Society found he was not a reliable or credible witness.

The Law Society said there was nothing technical or specialized about the work he was doing, and he demonstrated a pattern of neglect, carelessness and mistakes made worse by his "cavalier attitude."

Ultimately, the Law Society found that Marriott had committed professional misconduct.

Any financial penalty and repercussions will be decided at a later date.

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