Sometimes a complaint will lead to practice restrictions and/or conditions being imposed on a lawyer. In every case where a lawyer’s practice is currently restricted or subject to conditions, our Lawyer Search informs the public of the lawyer’s restricted practice. The restricted practice notice remains in place for the public until the restriction and/or conditions have been removed.

All complaints referred to the Discipline Committee after July 1, 2009 are considered public and a list of all these matters is available on our Discipline Cases page. Once a decision has been rendered, the decision is prepared for publication and posted to the same page.

The following complaints are not public:

• All matters that arose before July 1, 2009.

Only matters which have been referred to the Discipline Committee after July 1, 2009 are public.

In addition, claims being considered by the Compensation Fund Committee are not public, even if there was a public hearing of a related complaint.

Prior to its amendment on July 1, 2009, the Law Society Act, 1996 did not provide for discipline hearings to be open to the public but neither did it prohibit the publication of Discipline Committee decisions. Historical cases relating to matters that arose before July 1, 2009 and going back to January 1, 1997, when the Law Society Act, 1996 came into force and the Discipline Committee was created, are currently being translated for publication through the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII). Because these decisions relate to matters that are not public, the decisions will be published in an anonymized format that does not reveal the names of the lawyers involved and they are not indexed on our Discipline Cases page.

Discipline-related decisions prior to January 1, 1997 are not available.

Ongoing discipline and discipline history do not include insurance claims, whether they are open or closed and whether or not damages were paid. Information of this type is managed by the lawyer's insurer, and is not available to the office of the Registrar of Complaints. 

If you have other questions or concerns, you are invited to communicate with us by telephone for further explanation. Please remember that we cannot give you legal advice, and we are not permitted to give our opinion over the telephone.