A Vernon lawyer has been found to have committed professional misconduct after he knowingly filed false information to the courts about an elderly client's estate, and submitted mistake-riddled documents related to a straightforward property transfer matter.
A Feb. 6 decision by a Law Society of B.C. hearing panel found Leonard Hil Marriott 鈥� the owner of North Valley Law which has locations in Vernon, Armstrong and Enderby 鈥� demonstrated a "pattern of ineffective communication" with his client and other lawyers his client later turned to; made numerous mistakes in documents he filed; and gave evidence that was "replete with unresponsive and evasive answers" when the matter was put before the hearing panel.
It's the second finding of professional misconduct against Marriott in as many months.
According to the panel, in 2019 an elderly Shuswap woman identified as SG hired Marriott to execute a will for herself, prepare a power of attorney and transfer her home solely to her name after her husband, identified as MM, had passed away.
Right off the bat, Marriott made a mistake with filling out a form, and then made more mistakes trying to correct it.
One of the main complaints against Marriott was that instead of placing SG's home to her name as the surviving joint tenant, he filed a completely wrong form and ended up severing the joint tenancy, causing a legal hassle with the land titles authority. He then failed to communicate this error to his elderly client.
Marriott called the error "an honest mistake. The Law Society called it professional misconduct or incompetence. The panel concluded that Marriott had "utterly failed to accomplish this relatively straightforward service."
More problems arose when Marriott failed to disclose the existence of MM's will. He also failed to determine that the late husband had two children from a previous marriage. The children were potential beneficiaries who were left out of the estate plan.
Marriott claimed that SG hadn't informed him of the children, but SG refuted this to the panel, and the panel found it was "inconceivable" that SG would have lied and told Marriott that her husband had not had any children.
Documents Marriott submitted contained "a litany of mistakes," the panel found.
The panel found that Marriott was not a reliable or credible witness. At one point the panel was "flummoxed" when Marriott alluded to difficulties with accessing the court due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel pointed out this couldn't be the case because the pandemic hadn't happened yet.
The panel said Marriott's evidence was "replete with unresponsive and evasive answers," adding he spoke evasively "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."
Eventually, Marriott's elderly client retained another lawyer, and the panel noted that even once Marriott was contacted by this other lawyer, confusion originating from mistakes he had made in her matter, "which could have been cleared up very easily, remained for months."
Marriott faced three professional misconduct allegations. One of them was that he mislead counsel by telling them that he had never seen a valid will for the deceased, but this allegation was dismissed by the panel.
Ultimately, the panel found Marriott had committed professional misconduct, having been satisfied that the Law Society had proven the two other allegations.
Despite being admitted as a member of the Law Society more than 30 years ago, in February 1992, Marriott has relatively little experience as a practicing lawyer. In all, he has only practiced law for about three years, with a gap of about 23 years from when he was first qualified to practice, according to the decision.
This is not the first time Marriott has been found to have committed professional misconduct. In December, he was ordered to pay back more than $71,000 into his trust account after another Law Society panel found he had withdrawn the funds improperly, and had also committed professional misconduct when he mishandled the execution of a will.
