It is part of the image groomed by the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) to appear fair. In fact, lead LSUC Discipline Counsel Susan Heakes, charged with proving Harry’s poor character to block his licensing as a paralegal, has gone further. At an earlier hearing, she proudly declared that the LSUC has the obligation to set the utmost standard of fairness. That standard, in the prosecutorial context, usually involves an independent and disinterested tribunal, disclosure, a full opportunity to be heard and respectful and fair conduct in dealing with their opponents.  In Harry Kopyto’s good character hearing, each one of these principles has been egregiously breached.

The predisposition of the LSUC to prejudge Harry as guilty of poor character became dramatically evident earlier this month.  At least 4 or 5 times, Heakes has brazenly warned the Panel assessing Harry Kopyto’s good character that the length of the proceedings allows Harry Kopyto to continue to practice as a paralegal. She repeated this ominous warning at the conclusion of the last hearing day on January 10, 2012 as if “outing” Kopyto’s scheming gameplan to the naïve panel in her stern lecturing tone and presuming that the Panel will find him guilty of poor character.

Panel Chair Margot Blight’s response to Heakes was to admonish Harry Kopyto for not hurrying things up.  She, in the role of an adjudicator, therefore implicitly accepted the validity of Prosecutor Heakes’ blatant intrusion of the Panel’s independence. Is this an appropriate response from the supposedly neutral Panel Chair?

The issue can be divided into two parts: the efficiency of the cross-examination process and the appropriateness of Heakes’ comments and Blight’s response. As to the first matter, the perceived efficiency of cross-examination should have absolutely no bearing on whether Harry continues to practice as a paralegal or not. Otherwise, there goes the presumption of innocence. The time taken to elicit evidence should be based solely on the criteria relevant to a search for justice.  What Heakes’ little dramatic explosion ignores is that the time taken in cross-examining investigator Adrian Greenaway has escalated because of 3 additional complaints against Harry added by the LSUC last October and by dramatic revelations made by Greenaway that undermine the LSUC’s case and opened new fruitful lines of questioning.  Even if the Prosecutor sees fit to ignore these facts, why should the Panel?

No Nuzzling Allowed During Game Time, Please

As to the second matter, LSUC Prosecutor Susan Heakes’ comments are based on the foregone conclusion that the Tribunal will eventually find Harry guilty of poor character, so the process intentionally elongated by Harry’s nefarious machinations should be hurried up.  It is an admonition to the Panel Chair to fulfill a duty to her handlers in the Law Society—to expeditiously deprive Harry Kopyto of his role as a paralegal.  One who believes that the Panel should function as neutral adjudicators would find such a comment an affront to the Panel’s integrity. Rushed justice is poor justice.   Heakes telegraphs to Blight, “We know Harry will lose. Bring him to heel now!”

It may be that Heakes knows more about Blight and her predispositions than we do.  After all, they both share an employer, move in the same circles and share the same attitudes and perceptions.  But Blight has an image of neutrality and objectivity to project as a judge. She cannot be seen to be on the same wavelength as a party to the proceedings since the façade of neutrality would soon fade.  So there has to be an appearance of distance.  No nuzzling allowed during game time, please! None of this would suggest that there is a conspiracy, of course.  But who needs a conspiracy when the strings in this puppet show are all held by one hand?

One would expect, under these circumstances, that a truly independent Panel Chair would issue a stern warning to Ms. Heakes to not presume to tell the Panel that it should treat Harry’s case as having been decided and to allow the proceedings that have already progressed through 28 days to continue at a normal pace.  Perhaps, one might speculate, Ms. Blight was preoccupied at the end of the session and missed the implicit attack against her integrity for not abridging Harry’s cross-examination of Greenaway more forcefully.  Or maybe Blight has a difficult balancing act. However, this is not the first or second or even third instance of such a menacing utterance from Ms. Heakes.  Moreover, on a previous occasion, Harry brought this personal attack on his motives by Ms. Heakes to the Tribunal’s attention and protested vigorously. Ms. Blight’s response at that time? To make a show of trying to deflate tensions.  But times have changed.  Blight now no longer gives the appearance of taking her distance from Heakes’ personal attacks and even cracks the whip over Harry’s head herself.

Wink! Wink! We Know Harry is Guilty

Harry brought a challenge to the Tribunal on natural justice grounds before evidence was heard. He argued that the intersection of adjudicative, prosecutorial, investigative and administrative functions by closely related bureaucrats amounted to the Law Society’s sitting in its own cause.  Blight deflected the challenge to the end of the evidentiary portion of the good character hearing, but since then severely limited Harry’s cross-examination of Greenaway on this issue. Now, we are tasting the bitter fruit of the Blight Panel not allowing Harry’s challenge to be heard first, as would ordinarily be the case given the denial of procedural fairness that Harry alleged in his argument. The LSUC bureaucracy, which has appointed both the Panel and the prosecutors, is manifesting its invisible hand through hostile warnings and presumptions of Harry’s guilt advanced by its prosecutorial component to its quasi-judicial component. Wink!  Wink!  We know Harry is guilty.  The Law Society’s left hand is telling its right hand to hurry up and bury Harry Kopyto.  And the message has not been lost on Blight who now routinely perks up her ears to Heakes’ transmissions of her handlers’ impatience.

Blight took the opportunity of Heakes’ attack on Harry to tell him that the Panel “is also losing patience”.  She ordered him to file a “cross-examination plan” of Greenaway with time estimates. She directed him to identify remaining topics for cross-examination.  She warned that the Panel was “signaling” Harry that his cross-examination was counterproductive by generating responses that revealed new allegations against him.  She remonstrated with Harry about how the Panel had given him broad leeway by listening to his various “theories” (that word slipped out of her lips with only a slightly camouflaged disparaging tone).  And she handed down her own admonitions without even consulting the other two Panel members, whose adherence to her rulings has hardened by repeated unanimous decisions refusing virtually every one of Harry’s contested motions for over a year.

Blight Auditions–Earns Starring Role

What is at work here?  Surely, if she is running out of patience, as she says, Blight should consider recusing herself from the Panel.  Patience is the hallmark of a neutral judge and a prerequisite for a full and fair hearing. As Harry has rebuked her in return, “Ms. Blight, you have no business managing my cross-examination. The law forbids such interference.  If a question asked in cross-examination is relevant, it must be allowed. As you surely know, sometimes repeating a question during cross-examination has the effect of evoking a previously hidden response.  Every day of cross-examination—including the repetition of certain questions to Greenaway—has provided information helpful to my defence.”

Aside from the structural bias inherent in having unitary control of all the actors in Harry’s hearing, Blight also has concerns that she may not be perceived as discharging her mandate effectively. She accepted her role only tentatively as an “outsider” called upon to deal with a problematic proceeding after two Panels chaired by Benchers dramatically imploded under hammer blows from Harry. She confirmed her willingness to become chair of Harry’s Hearing Panel only after astutely finessing, in her first assigned capacity as a Motions Panel chair, Harry’s constitutional challenge to the law that allowed lawyers to rule over competing paralegals. Since passing that audition and accepting the starring role, she has robotically ruled down every single motion brought by Harry to limit the one-sided procedural rules that suffocate the rights of those dragged before the usually Bencher-dominated Panels. However, Harry’s feisty defence has meant that the Blight Panel is moving into its second year of hearings. (Tut, tut. Too long.)

Big Law Salivates for Harry’s Destruction

The mandarins in the recessed tea-rooms off Osgoode Hall’s elegant Victorian hallways are indeed impatient with the process.  Even one day of Harry in the courts is too long for them. Indirect heat emanates fiercely from Discipline Counsel as was seen on January 10, 2012.  But Margot Blight, whose self-image as a case management maestro is wilting at the edges after 18 of the 28 days of hearings chaired by her, is also challenged by the length of time taken to destroy Harry professionally – which Big Law salivates for.  Blight has a reputation to maintain and a promise to keep.  But impatience claims a prize.  Blight’s image as a fair adjudicator is not enhanced by her expressions of impatience, by taking the other Panelists for granted and by time-consuming clashes with Harry who tends to become increasingly assertive in defending his rights when under attack.  Blight is definitely not a happy lady.  She is still unable to see the end of the tunnel after 13 months of case-management (code word for rushing the hearings through the system).  Undoubtedly, like many other adjudicators, being perceived as being used by Harry puts the fear of death in her.

Harry’s continued refusal to heel by abridging his defence is only part of the troublesome picture.  The evidence at the hearing itself has created embarrassment to the LSUC. It was never part of Blight’s agenda to allow Harry to expose the myth of fraudulent billings to Legal Aid, for which Kopyto was led to ritualistic slaughter by the Benchers in 1989.  This gaping hole in the centrepiece of the LSUC’s initial case against Harry’s honesty was exposed as contrived during Harry’s cross-examination of Greenaway under Blight’s watch. The savvy prosecutors soon adjusted their strategy by shifting focus to Harry’s supposed “ungovernability” as their main focus.

Blight Protects Greenaway from Potential Scandal

Moreover, in the course of cross-examining the main witness against Harry, LSUC investigator Greenaway admitted conduct in his prior career as a cop that a Toronto judge found to be outrageous, shocking the conscience of the community and bringing the administration of justice into disrepute for his participation in what has been called a panty-raid of a lesbian gathering at the Pussy Palace in downtown Toronto in 2000. When Kopyto questioned whether he revealed Judge Hyrn’s condemnation of him when applying for his LSUC job, Blight, with a fine Italian hand, deftly disallowed that question thereby protecting the LSUC and Greenaway from a potential scandal, as he would never have been hired by the LSUC if he revealed such a devastating judgment of his own conduct and character. As a public law savant promoted for her ability to extinguish fires, Blight does not relish fleeing the scene with flames licking at her own heels.

And so, with two more hearing dates on the horizon, Monday February 27^th and Wednesday February 29^th, the show goes on.  Kopyto continues to insist on his rights. Blight continues to rush him, if not indirectly endorsing Heakes’ trashing of him. Heakes continues to snap the whip over his head calling for the end of the pretence of fairness. Ms. Blight, can’t you almost hear Heakes pleading, “Don’t be fooled by Harry.  He is benefiting from your fairness. Haven’t you seen enough?  Isn’t it obvious that Harry won’t allow us to control him?  Defiant. No remorse.  What else do you need?”

Another question arises. What does Harry need?  Not to be prejudged. Not to have his motives questioned by attack dog tactics in the style of Susan Heakes. To be judged by adjudicators who know how to hear as well as listen.  To be allowed to ask relevant questions without being harassed. To have his character assessed by judges with the patience to do the job right.  To have natural justice trump efficiency and speed.

And, dare we dream, to be judged by a truly independent panel that reflects the public interest and not selected by and beholden to the self-interest of a price-fixing monopoly.

The three days of Law Society good character hearings concerning Kopyto that took place on January 3^rd, 5^th and 10, 2012 were revealing in an unexpected way.  Yes, investigator Adrian Greenaway was still on the stand being cross-examined by Harry—eight days now, if you are counting.  Other statistics also tell their story. Twenty-eight full hearing days. Three Law Society Panels.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on legal and administrative fees.  For what?  To prove that Harry lacks the good character needed to work as a legal advocate after 38 years of doing so?

Back to Greenaway, the architect of the Society’s case against Kopyto. He now looks totally dejected. He mumbles. He reads his notes instead of answering spontaneously. He stares blankly straight ahead. There is absolutely no eye contact with Harry. Or anyone else. He comforts himself with three huge cardboard boxes of LSUC documents about Harry which he clutches close at hand almost like a shield to deflect Kopyto’s piercing verbal missives.

Kopyto continues to pound him with questions. If it was a boxing match, he would have cried “Uncle” long ago.  He frequently answers, “I don’t know,” hoping that would end the line of questioning.  It seldom does.

Harry is relentless.  January 3^rd was especially hard for Adrian blowing away any festive mood that might have still lingered so close after the New Year celebrations.  Kopyto pounced on him early in the day.  He asked him outright a totally unexpected question—have you, Adrian, ever been found guilty of bringing the administration of justice into disrepute?  Ouch!  What an accusation against a person who is out to prove that Harry is the Bad Guy in this movie.  The Blight Panel leans forward listening intently, unsure why the question is being asked but clearly curious to hear the answer. “I don’t know,” Adrian responds.  The mystery thickens, “What is this about?” the Panel thinks.  But Greenaway knows what it’s about. He suddenly realizes that a career-busting bad dream is coming true.

Greenaway’s Conduct Lacks “Humanness” and is “Outrageous”

“Do you remember being one of five male cops who raided the Pussy Palace in downtown Toronto in 2000?”

“Yes”.

“Do you remember that two female undercover officers were already there enforcing the liquor laws when the five of you raided the Palace?”

“Yes”.

Do you agree that there were more than 350 women at this event organized by Toronto’s lesbian community?”

“Yes.”

“Will you agree that the majority were topless as you and your fellow male cops went room to room busting in on them?”

“Yes.”

“Was the atmosphere highly sexualized?”

“Yes.”

“Did you and your fellow male officers spend more than an hour in the building?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember charging the proprietors of the event with Liquor Licence Act offences some time later after a public outcry over the raid?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in court when the trial took place?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember Judge Peter Hryn of the Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the Liquor Licence charges on February 1, 2002?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that he described your conduct as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy?”

“Yes.”

“A Charter violation?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that he ruled that your conduct brought the administration of justice into disrepute?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Were you in Court when the verdict was read?”

“Yes.”

“And you expect us to believe that you don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember.”

At the hearing two days later on January 5th, Kopyto gave Adrian the transcript of the Reasons for Decision of Judge Hryn to help him refresh his memory.

“Did Judge Hryn describe your conduct as outrageous?” Kopyto asked.  “Yes,” Greenaway admitted.

“Did he say it shocked the conscience of the community?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say you lacked humanness?”

“Yes.”

“And once again, did he say that you brought the administration of justice into disrepute?”

“Yes, I remember now,”  Greenaway, who the LSUC chose to investigate and evaluate whether Kopyto had good character, admitted in a tone that reflected defeat, albeit without remorse.

Greenaway is your Baby, Ms. Blight

At various times during the hearing, Panel Chair Margot Blight tried to take her distance from Adrian.  “We don’t care what his opinions about you are… You are the one being judged, not him…His opinions are not relevant…He is only the investigator,” etc. etc. etc.

Not so fast, Ms. Blight. Adrian Greenaway is a product of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He is your baby, Ms. Blight.  He is part of Big Law’s machine out to crush Harry. His mentality has been shaped and nurtured by the Society. As such, he is only one of many Adrian Greenaways that infest the Society’s inner workings.  And Harry, by alleging institutional bias against him, has also put the LSUC and its investigation on trial as well.

First and foremost, the LSUC needs the robotic Adrian Greenaways to control lawyers and paralegals. If you are not stamped out of a cookie-cutter mold, you have poor character. If you criticize the legal profession or legal system using popular, effective, attention-getting, colourful language—such as Kopyto’s famous stinging comment about the police and courts sticking together like Krazy-Glue—you have poor character.  If you undermine self-governance of the legal profession (yes, the LSUC’s discipline decisions actually require you to oppose public accountability of lawyers which is a near-universal practice and a key goal of most of Harry’s supporters), you have poor character. If you stand up fearlessly for your clients (the LSUC’s rules require you to try to force your clients to compromise their rights and claims by “encouraging” settlement), you have poor character. If you confuse justice with law, you’re toast.  And God forbid that you should help a client who cannot afford a lawyer draft a document in the High Court, even for free, and even competently, as Harry has done numerous times—you have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting licenced.

Law Society Intoxicated by its Power

The portrayal of the legal profession standing up courageously against the dictatorial power of the State to assert the rights of the oppressed and powerless is a myth. It masks the stark nakedness of a chummy brotherhood dominated by yesmen and wheeler-dealers who frequently treat their clients with the same disdain that a prostitute exhibits to her johns.  Do as you’re told!  Keep your mouth shut!  Don’t stand out.  Fit in.  And you’ll be alright.

Greenaway’s attitudes exposed during eight days of sworn testimony reveals the psychological nature of the LSUC bureaucracy—blind obedience, uncritical loyalty, and an air of moral superiority that rationalizes domination of us lesser mortals by those who are born to rule.

Of course, the prospect of hefty salary increases and prestigious promotions up the golden ladder solidify the snide and sanctimonious mentality of the Greenaways.  Adrian’s opinions are not those of an isolated individual.  He has no critical faculties.  He does not assert individual judgment. Adrian’s individualism, like those of his fellow sycophants in the LSUC, has long ago been wrung out of his character. He absorbs every day the prejudices of the hierarchy whose bidding he does. Low on the rungs, he strives for approval, acceptance and recognition.  So please, Ms. Blight, don’t  dismiss him “merely” as an inconsequential “investigator” collecting evidence.  Yes, he does collect evidence. But who selects what evidence he collects?  Who identifies the targets of his investigation?   Who defines how he should interpret the evidence?  Whose assumptions is he guided by if not his own?  Who decides what recommendations he should make?  And who decides to select him as Harry’s Chief Investigator, even one whose own clashes with the law demonstrate him to be of bad character?

Greenaway and Blight Joined at the Hip

Power corrupts. Power buys what it cannot conquer.  Power rewards its footsoldiers and represses the disobedient. Power is an intoxicant that affects profoundly the perceptions of those who protect and serve it.  The Adrians in the LSUC, although low in the ranks of institutional power, share the Society’s authoritarian ideology 100%.  They idolize and imitate their superiors like children do their parents and those who exercise power over their lives.  Their rules result in human suffering.

Yes, Ms. Blight, it would be nice to believe that Adrian’s views are personal and insignificant, or, to use your studied term, “unhelpful”.  But Adrian is the Law Society and the Law Society has hundreds of Adrians in its employ. The investigators, the intake officers, the prosecutors, the mentors, the discipline counsel, the so-called Independent Tribunal, the Proceedings Authorization Committee members, the Treasurer, the administrators, the Legal Department, the public relations Department, the Society’s image makers and those who trust you, Ms. Blight, to excommunicate Harry are all ideologically joined at the hip.  Not a conspiracy, to be sure, but a shared ideological mentality centered on self-deceptions of moral grandeur under assault by immoral and dishonest barbarians (us). The Law Society exists in splendid perceived isolation and occludes society at large in its vision of the law. Its self-image is of a guild with a monopoly over morality rising from the distant past (Upper Canada, remember?), a perfectly autonomous and self-contained sphere without any organic links to those whose lives intersect with the judicial system, but who, because of the LSUC’s monopoly over the legal profession, cannot access that system to get justice.

Ms. Blight, do you not see the irony of hiring people like Greenaway, whose main talent is to obey and enforce rules that result in human suffering, to positions of authority and influence over people who seek to be agents of justice?  And is the price-fixing legal industry that the LSUC controls not the one whose interests and needs you serve?  Do you not also ultimately share the mentality of Greenaway for whom you have shown such superficial disdain?

Blight Protects Greenaway who says Ghandhi and Rosa Parks have Bad Character

Why else do you protect the Society from revealing whether it knew of Greenaway’s history of abuse of power, outrageous conduct, lack of humanness and disgraceful attitude as a cop when he filled out his job application to be one of the LSUC’s investigators?  Why did you deny allowing Greenaway to tell us if he revealed Judge Hryn’s judgment of him when Greenaway himself made his own personal application to be a paralegal?  And why is it that you are rushing Kopyto’s questioning of Greenaway which, with each answer, shows how morally bankrupt the Society’s own character is?

Greenaway testified that Mahatma Ghandi and Rosa Parks could not qualify as LSUC members because they engaged in civil disobedience.  He identified them by name.  They broke the law. They had poor character.  Embarrassing, isn’t it? Greenaway testified on January 5^th that good character requires candour, honesty, openness, transparency and empathy.  Is it too much to ask that the LSUC adhere to such standards itself?

LSUC investigator Adrian Greenaway is not a happy man.  It’s not only the questions that Harry peppered him with on November 22, 2011, his fifth day of cross-examination.  It’s deeper. True, it’s just not really been a fun time for him at all.  The cocky self-confidence is gone. His answers are now blurted out in a blunt word or two. Then follows a meandering explanation, a “rationale” if you will.

The Law Society is a complicated world for Adrian. The answers are not always easy.  Adrian has to explain himself, justify what he is doing for a living, maybe even get a promotion for his performance as a witness if he pleases his superiors whom he seeks to emulate.  He listens carefully to each question.  He thinks deliberately. His face sometimes breaks out unexpectedly in animated expressions.  He tries to be focused.  Sometimes, he takes off on a tangent.  He gets more easily irritated with each day of being on the stand.  But, the bounce is gone. The bounce is definitely gone.

Ironically, the culprit behind Adrian’s increased moodiness is not Harry.  It is Margot Blight, the Chair of the three-person Panel that is assessing Harry’s character to see if he merits being allowed to work as a legal advocate as he has done for the last 38 years.  What irony—that Adrian’s new nemesis is none other than the demure, accomplished, upwardly mobile Margot Blight!  All three panelists volunteered for this posting.  But Blight is steering the ship.  She is writing all the judgments and orders, meticulously case-managing the hearing that is now in its 28^th day.

Back to Greenaway.  Greenaway is sincere. He is trying to make it in his second career since quitting his 17-year stint as a Metro cop. But his training makes him see the world in black and white.  True, he does have street smarts—savvy.  He knows what his role is.  He is also the architect of the LSUC case against Harry Kopyto. Harry is disbarred because of overbilling Legal Aid.  Harry does lawyers’ work (unauthorized practice).  Harry does not obey rules, no matter whether the rules jeopardize the interests of Harry’s clients. Harry therefore has bad character. End of story.

Won’t Go Behind Disbarment

Harry asks him about the Ontario Legal Aid Plan’s settling hundreds of thousands of dollars of his legal aid accounts after his disbarment without taking a cent off for any fraud.  (Kopyto was disbarred for allegedly fraudulently overbilling the Plan.) “What does this say about my character?” Kopyto asks. Greenaway catches on right away.  “I’m not going to go behind [i.e. critically evaluate the circumstances of] your disbarment,” he responds emphatically with a well-rehearsed even if somewhat tired line.  Now those of us who are really naïve may not appreciate fully what he is saying.  We may even believe simple-mindedly that the search for truth might require a person to look at all the evidence to find out what really happened.

Harry has been asking for decades why Legal Aid never sought to be compensated for his alleged overbilling without an answer.  In fact, he launched a lawsuit seeking full repayment of all his accounts “frozen” during the disbarment proceedings in 1989. And the Ontario Legal Aid Plan agreed to settle the case on his terms paying him in full and avoiding a civil trial that would have exposed the LSUC’s Big Lie.

The fact that Harry was never charged criminally when he wrote then Attorney-General Ian Scott a public letter demanding to be charged for fraud does not figure in Greenaway’s thinking.  The fact that Legal Aid never claimed compensation is not on Greenaway’s radar.  “I will not go behind your disbarment,” Greenaway’s master’s voice speaks.

Greenaway’s bald blindness to reality is an embarrassment to Blight. She comes from a different space.  Polished, subtle, aware that she must appear fair. She promised Harry at the start of the hearings that she would allow him to fully explain and explore the circumstances of his disbarment.  That she would not prejudge his guilt.  And now she is just ever so slightly squirming at Greenaway’s bluntness.  “His opinions are not very helpful, Mr. Kopyto,” she says, “It is our opinions that matter.”  One of many comments distancing her from Greenaway.

One Moment Please, Ms. Blight

One moment please, Ms. Blight.  Let’s say a few words in defense of Adrian.  His opinions do matter. He is the one who recommended that a good character hearing is necessary.  He is the one who writes the investigation reports that almost always end up being the “Statement of Facts” LSUC prosecutors base their prosecution on.  Adrian knows his role and feels justified in defending the LSUC’s ideology. He seeks to please his superiors whom he deeply admires, and whose mentality of repression and control he has osmotically absorbed. We don’t go behind the disbarment. We don’t question the decisions of Convocation. We follow rules and prosecute those who don’t. And we don’t question or reconsider our judgments.

But we also know where Greenaway’s attitudes and perceptions were initially shaped. They were shaped enforcing liquor laws in the Entertainment District in Downtown Toronto.  There are good guys and bad guys.  That’s all you know. That’s all you need to know.

Greenaway never questions his superior elite in the LSUC’s hierarchy.  The LSUC elite lives in its own world.  Until the 1970s, they still had their junior staff wash their afternoon teacups when they met to confer with each other.  He accepts their expertise and follows their directives uncritically. Their rationales become his rationales. Their prejudices become his prejudices. Their values become his values. Their aggressive controlling mentality melds well with his police-trained mentality. Nothing is gray. Unswerving compliance with directives is the surest path to promotion and job security. Greenaway has already proven himself by his “kills”—more than a dozen grandparenting applicants whose fate was professional death based on his investigative work which he did admit was “a little sloppy” in earlier evidence.

Greenaway even comes with a claim to fame. He won a lawsuit against a City Councillor, Kyle Rae in 2002, who criticized Greenaway’s role in invading the Pussy Palace during a widely advertised lesbian gathering already infiltrated by undercover female officers.  But the truth is that Adrian is not perfect and may even himself have “bad character”. Ontario Court Judge Peter Hryn criticized Greenaway and other cops for “bringing the administration of justice into disrepute” for his conduct as one of seven male cops who went rogue on what City Councillor Kyle Rae called a “panty raid” in 2002.

Greenaway’s opinions are important, Ms. Blight. You will come and go but Adrian is here to stay. He is the real face of the Law Society. He is, for those he investigates, the Law Society itself.  He reveals the Law Society’s ideology without the fig-leaf: bare-naked aggression, a presumption of guilt that can’t be pierced, a black and white analysis that obliterates inconvenient truths.  Tunnel vision, intolerance of those who challenge their authority. Arrogance. Self-righteousness.  A sense that the LSUC can do no wrong. The confidence that money and connections gives the LSUC which is the most powerful organization outside the government in Ontario.

Yes, Ms. Blight, Adrian’s opinions are those of a functionary who has absorbed the ideology of the elite of the LSUC hierarchy.  He is a footsoldier who has absorbed the elite’s mindset in a blinkered, robotic way. This sometimes leads to a chilling frankness which you, Ms. Blight, should not attempt to sweep under the rug because it reflects the real face of the LSUC without the window-dressing.

The Truth is in the Details

Harry, who is now being targeted as incorrigible for doing lawyers’ work, asked Adrian about a case in his Report that accused Harry of bad character for helping an indigent client—pro bono—who was being sued in his marriage breakup.  Harry was asked to represent him by a well-known respected lawyer who was also a member of Parliament and a former Ontario Cabinet Minister. The client spoke no English, was on welfare and was being harassed by his ex-wife who resided outside Ontario.

Harry was asked to work pro bono which he agreed to do out of a sense that his client was entitled to defend himself and there was absolutely no other option available to him. Unhesitatingly, Greenaway attacks Harry’s character for unauthorized practice in helping this client for free.

Harry asked Greenaway if it would still be evidence of bad character to prepare a defence for his client even if it were reviewed and vetted by a licensed lawyer. “Yes,” Greenaway replied, “because you were breaking the law by practicing outside your scope.” Without Harry’s provision of the legal services, the client would have had an unfair judgment against him for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Harry asked if Harry’s preventing such an unjust result was still evidence of his bad character.  Greenaway said “Yes.” Harry asked why.  Greenaway proffered that it was illegal for Harry to provide a Superior Court defence as a paralegal.  Harry asked if it would be evidence of good character if he had left the client out to dry rather than performing a free legal service.  Again, Greenaway said “Yes.” Loud gasps and scoffs emanated from the public that was invigilating the hearing. This resulted in a stern admonition from Blight.  Harry asked what choice the client had. Greenaway said the client could have gone to a lawyer whom Harry referred some cases to. Ironically, this was a lawyer that Greenaway had insisted earlier should not have taken any cases from Harry. But the client couldn’t pay the lawyer so it wasn’t happening. Greenaway’s response?  A shrug.

Case Against Harry Irrational

These two exchanges reveal the irrationality of the case against Kopyto.  Harry’s conduct in helping his client is consistent with the constitutional principle of access to justice.  This is a basic right according to the Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin of the Supreme Court who asks “How can there be public confidence in a system of justice that shuts people out?”  Yet enforcement of a by-law drafted by the LSUC legal department to protect lawyers from competition takes precedence over the integrity of the judicial system itself in evaluating Harry’s character?  Go figure.

Maybe we are missing something.  Oh yes. The Law Society is protecting the public from incompetent paralegals.  The LSUC ideologists have publicly proclaimed that the “public interest” was the only factor that led them to cut the scope of paralegals to the bone during the 2007 takeover.  So that’s what keeps Greenaway awake at night.  He’s protecting the public—a noble goal indeed!  In fact, in a fit of animated passion, the flummoxed Greenaway raised the completely speculative spectre that parties to a lawsuit could argue against a court decision on the basis that they were not properly represented by an unauthorized assistant—something that has never happened or that could happen only in the wild world of contrived paranoia of the LSUC.

Okay, Harry replied. “So let’s say that I show the court document that I prepared without charge to a lawyer to vet and amend before it is filed in the court to ensure quality?  Does that make a difference?”

Whose Law Should be Obeyed?

“It is still bad character, because you’re breaking the law,” Adrian replies.  But that begs the question. Whose law should be obeyed?  A constitutional right or a cash grab by-law?

This exchange revealed that providing access to justice for the LSUC means nothing compared to protecting its turf. Basic constitutional rights are sacrificed for selfish economic rights.  It reveals a near hysterical fear that the lawyers’ monopoly will be breached even when quality of service is assured by the involvement of lawyers.  Obedience to rules has a higher ethical component than assisting people in dire need. But history is made by people who break unjust laws.  Take that, Ghandi!  Take that, Rosa Parks!  Take that, Vaclav Havel! Take that, Martin Luther King!  The Law Society’s Old Boys say that all of you have bad character.  You could never meet the ethical standard for practising law in Ontario.  You break rules.

Blight makes notes.  She writes a lot.  She listens intently. She will decide. But what will she say?  Will she polish off Greenaway’s justification for attacking Kopyto’s character with a legalistic veneer?  Will she look at the big picture? Will she retreat to a narrow definition of public interest? Will she assess Harry’s character using the timeworn, tired old clichés that lawyers are so good at creating to mask their real intentions which Greenaway unwittingly exposes?

Greenaway’s Evidence Crumbles

Blight will have to weigh Greenaway’s evidence. It included many other exchanges revealing the LSUC’s contrived case against Harry’s character.

• Greenaway argued that if a law is unfair, you have to obey it until it is changed.  But 25 years of gutting Legal Aid and an average lawyer’s  fee of $338 an hour (and soaring) makes a mockery of promises of change.  99% of the population knows well the class character of the legal system. Real change comes from bold challenges and people resisting unfairness.  It comes in fits and starts.  Tunisia and Egypt are examples of people trying to take control of unresponsive institutions by civil disobedience.  One young person who breached a law in Tunisia for setting up a fruit stand recently set a dozen countries locked in repression for decades ablaze with the prospect of change by tens of millions inspired by his fiery death.

• Greenaway agreed that the story of two witnesses the LSUC intends to call “does not make sense.” They claim Harry misrepresented himself as a lawyer in a small claims court action which does not require a lawyer to represent clients.  So why are they calling them as witnesses?  Is this the best the prosecutors can do?

• Greenaway argues that Harry misrepresented himself by preparing documents in his clients’ names—something lawyers are allowed to do.  Harry pointed out that in the case being discussed, it was made clear that the client asked to use Harry’s publicly ascertainable address, fax and phone number. The Defence was even marked “c/o”. Where was the misrepresentation?  Adrian Greenaway said that it was to the opposing lawyer and his client.   What is he talking about?

• Greenaway insisted that the lawyer in that case who will be called as a witness didn’t know that Harry was not a lawyer and, when he found out, refused to deal with him. Yet that lawyer continuously telephoned Harry and only complained to the LSUC  about Harry when he couldn’t get Harry to force a proposed settlement on his client. Greenaway, investigator par excellence, could not explain the reference to the settlement in the lawyer’s letter of complaint against Harry.  The lawyer’s story that he had dealt with Harry for months until he suddenly discovered who Harry was the day after the offer was rejected by Harry’s client is clear evidence of vengeance for his failed attempt to blackmail Harry.

• Greenaway called Harry a liar because Harry claimed in a public statement that his disbarment was owing to the kind of law he practised. Yet, Ian Outerbridge, who chaired the disbarment panel in 1989, claimed that “Harry swears to tear down and smash the legal system and abjures the law…”  A clear statement of prejudice against the kind of law Harry represents.  Harry challenged Greenaway on his assertion that it was a sign of Harry’s bad character that Harry stated publicly that the reason for his disbarment had to do with the kind of law he practices and that he was treated selectively.  Harry outlined examples of selective treatment.  Harry pointed to a LSUC memo in which his law associate, Angie Codina, was advised to get Harry to resign as a lawyer in order to get her off the hook on totally unrelated charges.  Harry pointed to an LSUC panel’s ruling that LSUC senior prosecutor Steve Sheriff had abused the process of the LSUC by denying Harry’s request for subpoenas in respect to his disbarment hearing. Harry pointed out several different instances including LSUC Bencher Phillip Epstein’s Panel which was appointed to try Harry for professional misconduct in respect to his denunciation of the RCMP and courts being “stuck together like Krazy-Glue”. Harry pointed to a public protest by a LSUC auditor that he was told to lie about his reason for reviewing files of Harry’s associate. These actions demonstrate that Harry’s use of his practice as a tool for social change was motivating the LSUC’s disdain of him.

Law Society’s Own “Bad Character” Revealed

The evidence from Greenaway before Blight to date has done more to confirm the LSUC’s bad character than Harry’s.  It has involved:

1. lying to him by pretending that the decision to put him through a good character hearing was to be made after the LSUC’s investigation although the decision was already made;
2. accusing him of fraudulent overbilling of Legal Aid in the amount of $150,000 without explaining why the Ontario Legal Aid Plan never sought compensation from Harry that was readily available through deductions it could have made from his outstanding unpaid accounts;
3. relying on witnesses whom Greenaway himself refuses to back or believe;
4. using the LSUC’s one-sided investigation to build a case against Harry while not even bothering to obtain a single item of evidence of good character for Harry over a 22-year period of practice;
5. accusing Harry of misrepresenting himself as being a lawyer, misrepresenting his disbarment to the media and other dishonest conduct, all of which accusations Greenaway has either abandoned or proved unable to establish in his testimony.

There is No Third Way

Ms. Blight, Adrian has a tough job to do.  You may not like to hear his blunt, contradictory, inconsistent and sometimes irrational opinions.  His twisted deceptions are not neatly folded. But Adrian is doing his best. Ultimately, you will need to decide whom you agree with. Do you agree with him or Harry Kopyto? There is no third way.

Philip Slayton, former Law School Dean and corporate lawyer, in his best-selling book Lawyers Gone Bad, states that “One might think this is what happened to Harry Kopyto”, referring to the fact that “a Law Society member who is different risks severe criticism and marginalization.” Is this something that you would at least consider happened to Harry, Ms. Blight?  We know you don’t relish being Harry’s saviour. But we expect you to exercise fair judgment instead of seeing Harry’s arguments as obstacles to be overcome.

Ms. Blight, your answers remain to be given.  They will be based in part on the ongoing cross-examination of Greenaway scheduled to continue on Tuesday January 3^rd and Thursday January 5, 2013, 9:30 a.m. in the Museum Room, Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto. The public is asked to be there. Not only for Harry, but in support of his struggle for justice for all.

Harry Kopyto Defence Committee

Harry Kopyto’s fight to keep his paralegal licence has reached a critical juncture as it enters its third year.

His strategy to challenge the constitutionality of the independence of the Blight Panel is now being played out before the Superior Court in Toronto.  It was sent there by both the LSUC’s Blight good character Panel and the Swinton Panel of the Divisional Court which supported Blight 100%. They claimed that the Law Society’s good character Panel lacked the resources to decide if the takeover  of paralegals by lawyers breached the public interest by eliminating competition and driving up the prices of legal services. They held that the Blight Panel was “institutionally incompetent” to deal with the issue.  But the Panel also acknowledged that its independence as a tribunal was challenged by Harry’s argument that it was appointed under an unconstitutional by-law.  A challenge to the independence of a tribunal must be dealt with by that tribunal no matter what.  This is a fundamental principle of law—not to mention that it is a matter of simple logic.  Sadly, the Panel abrogated its legal duty.  Its refusal to rule on its own institutional independence is fatal to its legitimacy.

Harry is now likely the only grandparenting paralegal candidate left to complete his good character hearing.  The Panel has yet to decide if, at the age of 65, he will be stopped from working as a legal advocate which he has done since 1974.

From 2007 to 2009, the LSUC left him alone as a “Paralegal Candidate”. However in June, 2009, his number came up.

The first 10 days of hearings between the fall of 2009 and the end of 2010 involved efforts by Harry to get disclosure of the case against him and to get a hearing before an unbiased panel.  The first Panel chaired by Carl Fleck showed extreme hostility to Harry.  Fleck phoned Harry’s prosecutors behind Harry’s back.  He also kept Paul Dray as a Panel member although Dray, the LSUC’s poster boy for the takeover of paralegals by the LSUC, was a witness to the proceedings. That biased Committee bared its teeth by hitting Kopyto with a $10,000 costs penalty.  The outrageous penalty was imposed on Harry for abandoning his motion for directions regarding disclosure.  Fleck’s conduct showed his bias.   Fleck’s  brazen breach of the LSUC’s own rules was swept under the rug by the LSUC complaints department which refused Harry’s demand to investigate Fleck’s conduct.  So, Fleck gets to arbitrarily fine Harry for speaking up in his own defence but is immune from disciplinary procedure.

A second panel was then appointed.  However the panel Chair resigned, admitting that there was a perception of bias.  That Panel imploded.

Blight Was Well Cast

The Blight Panel took over in January, 2011 as Panel Number 3. Polished, bright-eyed, a friendly smile, promising fairness and a full hearing, Blight took on the post of chairing the Panel judging Kopyto’s character that was dangled before her by Bencher Alan Gold, whom Convocation appointed to run the show.  Blight had the right optics.  A non-Bencher outside the LSUC’s little circle. An already impressive history of putting out fires in “sensitive cases”.   An image of independence, but the track record of a trusted and loyal fixer for the status quo.  Sincere?  Maybe.  Self-aware?  Not so much.  Critical?  Not in this universe.

Blight is a quintessential systems person. A case management specialist.  Both federal and provincial Liberal Party governments have used her insight and skills to deal with “difficult” cases.  After an initial period of staged coyness about the assignment which included successfully “auditioning” on one of Harry’s motions, she agreed to chair the Panel judging Kopyto.  The other members of the Panel include a businessman from Mississauga, Baljit Sikand—with connections to the local Liberty Party, and another paralegal member being groomed by the LSUC, Michele Tamlin.  It’s a well-cast harmonious ensemble orchestrated by maestro Bencher Alan Gold that was carefully selected after two embarrassingly failed prior Panel appointments hit some sour notes.

Blight has proven her suitability for the role to the backstage managers who appointed her. She did compel the prosecutors to disgorge some previously withheld disclosure (except for some sensitive documents), though she didn’t have much choice. However, she rejected every one of Harry’s motions brought over a 10 day period designed to give him the same procedural safeguards in the hearing as are available to someone charged with an offence of speeding in a Provincial Court. She ducked dealing with Harry’s constitutional challenge to the Panel’s appointment because the Panel derived its authority from a by-law passed by lawyers that denies access to affordable justice by neutering and colonizing their competing paralegal profession.  In so doing, she completely ignored a Supreme Court decision that conflicted with her narrow reasoning and breached the LSUC’s obligation to promote the public interest in her ruling.  Now, that the Law Society case against Harry initially designed to picture him as a despicable cheat and fraudster is falling apart, she is trying to case-manage the hearing to a rapid conclusion to stem further bleeding.  Blight’s more subtle and nuanced approach provides an appearance of impartiality compared to the earlier panels but her decisions and perceptions reflect the sensibilities of her minders.

LSUC’s Case in Tatters—Now Harry’s Ungovernable

The evidentiary part of the hearing has been an unmitigated disaster for the Law Society right up to the November 22, 2011 hearing.  The astounding revelation by the LSUC that Legal Aid never sought compensation for any overbilling by Harry blew a huge hole in the majority disbarment decision written by Bencher Allan Rock, who subsequently ran unsuccessfully for leadership of the federal Liberal Party in the 1990s.  Harry’s disbarment was the foundation for the Law Society’s attack on his character. Now, it is melting in the air.  As well, the LSUC’s investigator on the stand for five days, has admitted that his investigation’s purported rationale, which was to recommend or not recommend a good character hearing, had been decided even before the investigation of Harry began.  Investigator Adrian Greenaway also admitted not unearthing a single example that showed Harry’s good character despite a multi-year investigation.  And now, as Harry reviews the so-called complaints against him with Greenaway still on the stand for a fifth day of grueling cross-examination, it is clear that the LSUC’s smear campaign is in tatters.  Harry’s penetrating questions of Greenaway’s Investigation Report so weakened their case that the prosecutors have  been forced to adopt a new paradigm to frame their attack on him.  Now, Harry is “ungovernable”.

Harry’s willingness to assist clients in their high court cases—at the risk of drawing the charge of “unauthorized practice” (UAP)—has become the focus of the prosecutors’ renovated strategy. But is it “bad character” for Harry to help an indigent client who can’t afford lawyer’s fees, especially without charge?  Or when no lawyer will do the work?  And if UAP is such a sin, why has the LSUC never pursued any charges over decades against Harry for helping whoever needed him? Why have judges even welcomed him to advise clients in their courtrooms and invited him to sit at counsel table during Superior Court proceedings from which the LSUC bans him?

Seventy-Nine Percent Say Rich Get Better Treatment in Courts

Kopyto’s confrontation with the LSUC comes as the LSUC is set to engage in a mandatory five-year review of the paralegal takeover law next year that will have to be approved by the Ontario Legislature.  In a May, 2010 Report, Listening to Ontarians, former Conservative Party politician Roy McMurtry who, before retirement, metamorphed into a Superior Court Chief Justice, revealed the enormous dimensions of the crisis of unaffordable justice.  Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed by him believed “the legal system works better for rich people than for poor people.” The lawyers’ monopoly over legal fees that drives the cost of legal services to soaring levels and keeps it there is never discussed by the LSUC as if ignoring it means it doesn’t exist.  Instead, facile solutions, such as permitting lawyers to “unbundle” their services, are being promoted as a panacea.  But the unaffordability of legal services is a burning issue that makes a mockery of the entire judicial system.  It is the elephant in the room that the LSUC, with blinkers on, seeks to ignore or pretends to fix with band-aid solutions.  Yet, in the words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, it is the most important crisis facing Canada’s judicial system.

In this context, the fact that Harry has actually survived the hearing process this long, with significant numbers of supporters present at every one of his 25 hearings, is itself an embarrassment to the LSUC.  The longer the case lasts, the more the LSUC is vulnerable to exposure as a tool to frame Kopyto.  The Emperor has no clothes.

Blight’s Decisions Show her Colours

The rush to “justice” is on. Three days of hearings have been set for Tuesday January 3^rd, Thursday January 5^th and Tuesday January 10, 2012 and another at the end of January and two more the next month. The outline of areas to cover in cross-examination of witnesses has to be filed by Harry. All hearings are to start at 9:30 a.m. sharp—an ironic edict since the Panel itself has been frequently late or taken up valuable hearing time to discuss its decisions.  The Panel, which happily cancelled a scheduled hearing because the prosecution was too busy without a peep, is breathing down Harry’s neck.  And it’s not out of love.

Blight has shown a pattern of resisting Harry’s well-founded legal motions with trite and conventional judgments. Her ruling on her lack of jurisdiction to declare By-law 4 unlawful ignored a recent Supreme Court case that criticized the outdated empirical methodology she used in her reasoning.  She denied Harry’s friend and co-victim of Law Society harassment, Angie Codina, the right to make legal submissions at a hearing in an area of Angie’s expertise on Harry’s behalf.  She denied Harry the right to question the LSUC investigator on how the LSUC system allows it to centralize control of the investigative, prosecutorial and adjudicative functions in support of a motion Harry intends to bring.  She has directed that Harry’s supporters, who he intends to call as character witnesses, should be excluded from attendance at hearings since they may be “influenced” by what they hear. She directed a motion challenging this exclusion order to be made in writing in the absence of consent by both parties and therefore in breach of the LSUC’s own rules requiring oral hearings. She has allowed negative decisions about Harry made by hostile judges into evidence without Harry being given a chance to question the judges by requiring them to be present to be cross-examined. She has refused to even consider a review of the thoroughness of the Law Society’s disclosure efforts as if the LSUC could never do wrong.

There is a barely detectable, tacit subtext between senior prosecutor Susan Heakes and Panel Chair Margot Blight who both function as agents within the same institution, share the same loyalties and interact professionally.  They both have a job to do and their jobs mesh.  They don’t even have to wink at each other as they pass the puck to smack it into the net.

Harry has already announced that he intends to subpoena several judges on whose decisions Blight decided to rely against him to his hearing.  As well, Harry is subpoenaing Greenaway’s controllers higher up in the LSUC’s hierarchy to testify on institutional bias based on his bad character following from his disbarment and on the overlay of LSUC functions that breach principles of natural justice.  The judges and LSUC handlers are not extremely happy with the prospect of being dragged into the limelight of his public hearing.  Sparks will fly.  The media may well show interest in these events—something the LSUC dreads and wants Blight to block.

LSUC—Where Power Meets Power Meets Power

The LSUC is not just another regulatory professional institution. It is a horse pretending to gallop in two opposing directions.  On the one hand, protecting lawyers’ interests.  On the other, pretending to serve the public interest  The two clash. It can’t be done.  The LSUC fox has the keys to the paralegal chicken coop. Lawyers are eating their squawking competitors alive with feathers flying all over the place. The end result is a price-fixing monopoly.

The LSUC (that is, lawyers), has a statutory mandate to act in the public interest and promote affordable justice.  But the judicial system belongs to the public, not to lawyers.  Slick and oily lawyers for whom being savvy (yes, they actually use that word in their newspaper job ads) is a job qualification, run the LSUC. The big fish in the LSUC swim in a sea of camouflaged self-interest contaminated with disdain and snide sanctimony.  They have a fetishized legalistic focus and seldom see the big picture. They are blind to the influences that shape their perceptions. Ontario went from having one of the best to having one of the worst legal aid plans in the world under the aegis of the LSUC.  Cosmetic changes including electing the first female LSUC “Treasurer” in 200 years to head Convocation are purely decorative. The Law Society’s current campaign for civility among lawyers speaks volumes of its efforts to enforce conformity and fear in a profession that masquerades as adversarial but in fact is an Old Boy’s Network.

A boisterous and divided Convocation meeting showed deep divisions within the ranks of the Benchers last year. Many agreed with Justice Corey who warned that the LSUC should never govern paralegals because of their “hate” for them.  Only 37% of lawyers bothered to vote in the Bencher elections this May. In such tough times, a $67,000 raise in the Treasurer’s “Honorarium” this year (on top of $125,000 already paid) was obscene beyond imagination.    With talent at the top meriting a gift like that, one would think the Treasurer would be able to reduce the continued escalation of dissatisfied clients’ complaints the LSUC receives against lawyers, which will soon top 10,000 annually.

No Transparency or Accountability

The LSUC is where financial power speaks to judicial power speaks to political power.  But if the LSUC has money and power, it does not have transparency, accountability and credibility. Its pretence of representing the public interest while actually protecting a price-fixing lawyers’ monopoly is under severe tension.  The LSUC feeds on secrecy, a hierarchical mindset and a fetishism of obedience to its most miniscule rules as the ultimate measure of good character.  It marginalizes its critics and victims by prosecutorial tunnel-vision and adversarial steam-rolling tactics.   Most lawyers are terrified by the LSUC.  Few resist it.  They know that the wily LSUC adjudicators sit in their own cause.

Harry is standing in the way of the LSUC’s efforts to homogenize legal advocates into a chorus of obedient sycophants.  He is playing the same role that he has played since 1974—when he was called to the bar—a fearless gadfly and thorn in the side of a legal system that pays lip service to the cause of affordable justice while delivering empty promises to 99% of the population. They burned with indignation when the Globe and Mail published Harry’s picture and biography on its front page at the height of Harry’s battle against the legal establishment in the 1980s.  Never again, they swore, disbarring him on phony charges. But he continued to fight them for another 23 years.  Now, they want to finally declare “Game over”.  Kopyto is not going quietly into that good night…

The good character hearings for Harry Kopyto continue on January 3, 5 and 10, 2012.  The Museum Room at Osgoode Hall.  Be there.

It was trench warfare on Remembrance Day at Osgoode Hall. Kopyto was in no mood to take prisoners.  He was cross-examining his chief protagonist, Law Society (LSUC) investigator Adrian Greenaway.  Greenaway is a loyal foot- soldier in the LSUC’s war to impugn Harry’s good character.  The strategic LSUC goal is to expel Harry from the ranks of paralegals.  Paralegals were recently colonized by Big Law representing the expansionist financial interests of lawyers.  Lawyers have already disabled their more affordable competitors by limiting their scope of practice in a war for lucrative markets in legal services.  The result has been a lawyers’ monopoly which the Law Society controls, wants to protect, and which Harry is seeking to breach.

Greenaway’s credibility as a witness against Harry’s good character has already been shattered by Harry in a battle of attrition.  How many times have the Panel Chair, Margot Blight, and the LSUC chief prosecutor, Susan Heakes, stated that the opinions of Mr. Greenaway are of little value to the proceedings? Despite open bleeding wounds, Greenaway continues to respond to a call to duty carrying the can for the LSUC Brass. He sits on the edge of his seat eager to deflect Kopyto’s aggressive cross-examination.  But he does it out of a sense of duty.  He has better things to do.  His heart is really not in it. Greenaway wants it all to be over.  A bead of sweat dribbles down his forehead.  But now, at 10:00 in the morning, sizzling with firepower, Kopyto makes sure that Greenaway will not forget Remembrance Day, 2011.

All the reports from the front were unanimous―it was a rout for the LSUC.  The Law Society’s strategy was in tatters at the end of the day.  They are down but not out.  They will be there again, soon. On Tuesday November 22, 2011, they will rise to fight Harry another day. However, on this sad day, which commemorates those who gave their lives for democratic rights like access to justice, Kopyto attacked the battle-weary Greenaway on two fronts.

First, Harry savagely destroyed the carefully crafted myth that he defrauded the Ontario Legal Aid Plan.  (See box below detailing the chronology of Kopyto’s dealings with the Legal Aid Plan.)  Greenaway admitted under fire that his two-year- long-scouting expedition in the archival bowels of Osgoode Hall confirmed that the Legal Aid Plan paid Kopyto for all the legal aid accounts that it froze when the LSUC disbarred him in 1989.  Somewhat dazed, he conceded that not a cent was deducted for any alleged “overbilling.”  Yet this mythical “overbilling” was the reason the majority of Convocation― lawyers elected by lawyers to run the LSUC gave to justify Kopyto’s disbarment.

Kopyto Clears His Name

During his 17-year prior posting as a cop, Greenaway told the Hearing Panel, he never knew a victim of fraud or theft who did not want to be compensated.  Why did Legal Aid not seek restitution from Kopyto? “I don’t know,” was Greenaway’s flaccid response.

“If you don’t know,” Kopyto asked, “who knows?”

If Greenaway, who reviewed the disbarment records, who interviewed the Legal Aid Plan’s lawyers, who reviewed the court file, didn’t know; if Greenaway, who signed his name to a 26-page Investigation Report accusing Kopyto of fraud didn’t know why Legal Aid didn’t claim repayment―which it could have deducted from Kopyto’s frozen accounts―who does know? That question remained unanswered by Greenaway. There was a deafening silence in the room.  Everyone was waiting patiently for an answer. But it never came. Only silence.  Silence that hovered over the heads of the three members of the Hearing Panel like a spectre from the fog of a distant war seeking vengeance for past wrongs against those present.

Kopyto’s sleeves were rolled up.  With a vibrant tenor of passion in his voice― which he was cautioned by Panel Chair Blight to tone down―he demolished the false accusations of dishonesty using the LSUC’s own key witness to establish his innocence. Greenaway squirmed as the Law Society’s charge of dishonesty dissipated with each unanswered question.

Greenaway Squirms―“I Don’t Know”

Kopyto opened up a second front in his battle to clear his name by asking the Panel to review his record as a paralegal.

“If I am pervasively dishonest, if I am a fraud artist, if I am a thief, would you not expect misdeeds recorded in hundreds of court appearances, trials and motions over the last 22 years?” asked Kopyto of his now shaken witness. “In my appearances in family court and criminal court, small claims court and before countless boards and tribunals, would you not expect judges to find improprieties in my conduct?”

“Yes”,  was the shy and hushed reply of the LSUC’s Chief Investigator.

“Did you find a single case of a judge making allegations that I did something improper?” Kopyto demanded in what was now becoming an up-close bloody knife fight.

“No,” Greenaway, wan at this point, blurted out.

“Why not?” Kopyto asked.

Again, a moment of silence. Again, a nervous smile on Greenaway’s face. Again, the barely audible three words that made the LSUC prosecutors squirm: “I don’t know.”

Kopyto did not relent.

“Why would a dishonest, fraudulent lawyer choose to build a practice representing clients on Legal Aid Certificates paying $75 an hour when he could be making several times more by representing clients privately?”  Kopyto asked Greenaway.
Greenaway again shrugged his shoulders: “I don’t know.”

“If I am a crook and a cheat and a fraud artist, why do dozens of my supporters come to these good character hearings [25 hearings in number over two years] to back me?” Kopyto demanded to know.

Greenaway was now distinctly unnerved.  He was taking flack on the front line.  Not a good time for him.  Again, he blurted out the three words that symbolized the bankruptcy of the LSUC’s attack on Harry’s character, “I don’t know.”

Kopyto Was Hot

Kopyto was hot on November 11, 2011. But sniping from the sidelines, the Law Society senior counsel, Susan Heakes, compulsively attempted to staunch the bleeding with protests designed to deflect Harry’s missives. Kopyto fired back, attacking Heakes for making repeated unfounded objections leading to delays to his hearing.  Harry seized that moment to counter-attack against Heakes’ snide assaults made at previous hearings in which she accused him of deliberate delaying tactics and had attempted to provide a chill to the proceedings by telegraphing to the Panel that the continuation of these hearings meant that Harry Kopyto was continuing to practice. A back and forth ensued―rat-at-tat, rat-at-tat, rat-at-tat. The room was electric.  The Hearing Panel Chair, Margot Blight, declared a ceasefire. It was too early in the morning for personal attacks, she ruled.  But it didn’t work. The hand-to-hand combat continued throughout the rest of Remembrance Day until Greenaway finally got some R & R when the hearing ended a half hour early.

Kopyto was able to extract additional concessions from Greenaway to enable Harry to consolidate his position and protect his ground. These included the following:

•    Greenaway matter-of-factly admitted he made no effort to obtain any positive evidence about Harry’s character―only negative evidence. This was a public confirmation of Kopyto’s position that Greenaway had tunnel vision, was building a case against him and that his own alleged failure to cooperate with Greenaway was justified.
•    Greenaway said that he was not going to go “behind the disbarment” to assess Harry’s character. This explanation was typical of Greenaway’s slavish submission to authority where big lies are taken as gospel truth with the LSUC’s stamp of approval while reality fades into nothingness.
•    Greenaway testified that he did not know if Harry was “too aggressive” as found by Toronto Family Court Judge Marvin Zuker. Zuker falsified a court transcript of reasons why he would not let Kopyto appear before him on behalf of a client, Robin Mayer, who was present at the hearing and proudly identified herself as a backer of Kopyto.  Zuker, as is well known, was found guilty of judicial misconduct in a dramatic exposure by Kopyto that did little to make Harry popular among the judiciary upon whose opinions the Panel relies.
•    Greenaway testified that he regarded the decisions of some judges to refuse Kopyto audience was proof of his bad character, whatever the reasons for exclusion might be. This followed from Greenaway’s position that Judge Zuker’s illicit exclusion of Harry from his courtroom constituted clear proof of Harry’s bad character.  This also showed Greenaway’s inability to form his own independent conclusions regarding Harry’s character as well as his subservience to the judicial establishment.  Not a man to rock the boat, for sure.
•    Greenaway admitted that his negative opinion of Harry’s character was influenced by the notoriously rightwing Ian Outerbridge who chaired the LSUC Panel that disbarred Harry in 1989. So vicious was Outerbridge’s attack on Harry that Convocation, embarrassed by the vitriol in his report ignored it and rewrote the reasons for disbarring him. Although he took issue with Outerbridge’s condemnation of Harry as someone who wanted “to smash the legal system,” Greenaway nonetheless endorsed the hostile decision of Outerbridge who believes that government regulation of doctors and lawyers makes them “slaves” of the state.

LSUC Hits Rock Bottom

Greenaway is an interesting example of the mentality that the LSUC instills in its troopers. If your are not with us, you are against us. He sees Harry, not as Harry is. He sees Harry as Greenaway is.  He obeys orders uncritically.  He adopts the perceptions of his superiors.  When reality impinges on these perceptions, he is genuinely perplexed―hence his chorus of “I don’t knows.”  Reality is too complex for the Adrian Greenaways of this world to understand.

At the November 11, 2011 hearing, the LSUC hits rock bottom.  It should never have crawled out of the trenches on that day. It now finds the foundation of its case against Kopyto weakened by giant fissures, if not blown to smithereens. However, it now seeks high ground to renew its attack.  It has already regrouped. Harry  is now accused of being “ungovernable.”  The change in strategy is an attempt to strengthen its flank and reorder its focus for the critical battles still to come.  It is also a transparent attempt to camouflage its rout.

The Law Society must pursue its campaign to demobilize Harry as a warrior for justice.  It must fight to the end. As Greenaway admitted, there is only one standard for defining good character that applies both to paralegals and lawyers.  A finding that Kopyto has good character to work as a paralegal is only a small step away from allowing him to reenter the ranks of lawyers. The LSUC knows that the victor in this theatre of war at Osgoode Hall will take a huge prize.

True, the legal profession makes the rules under which it conducts its war against Harry. Its defences are armor-plated. It has endless resources.  It has big guns. It is a well-oiled war machine.  It is connected at the hip with Big Money and Big Government.  It employs a battalion of 500 on its home front to defend its turf. It pays lip service to transparency, accessibility to justice and accountability to win the patriotism of the public.

Neutrality Not an Option

But, the reality is the opposite.  Harry continues to receive the support of members of the public.  Between 25 and 50 supporters have come to each one of his 25 hearings. They manage to penetrate the imposing ramparts of Osgoode Hall.  In 1837, Osgoode Hall was the nest of the Family Compact supporting British colonialism against William Lyon MacKenzie and the rebels who backed his struggling for an independent Upper Canada.  Close to 200 years later, Osgoode remains the resistant bastion of injustice.

Their propaganda war has led the elite of the legal profession to believe its own lies.  In legal battles, as in war, the first casualty is truth. Lawyers know that perception is everything. There are many truths, depending on which side you are on.  Which truth will ultimately prevail? The truth of the opulent legal aristocracy which is well acquainted with the fragrant bouquet of the exquisite reds that line the walls of Osgoode Hall’s wine cellar?  Or the 99% of us who have to work a full week to pay a lawyer’s fees for one billable hour?

If Harry ends up being a casualty of the LSUC’s attack on his character, we will all die a little.  When we attend as witnesses, we do so to defend ourselves, not just him.  His war is our war. An attack on him is an attack on all of us.

The red line is drawn in the white sand. The battleground is Osgoode Hall’s Museum Room. The next sortie will take place on Tuesday November 22, 2011 at 9:30 a.m.  Neutrality is not an option.

Kopyto’s Overbilling a Myth

1984-1986    Kopyto works almost exclusively for legally-aided clients issuing 423 accounts to the Ontario Legal Aid Plan (OLAP) which were paid by the Plan.

1987    The Law Society charges Kopyto for inaccuracies, mostly in recording phone calls, in his billings

1989    Convocation finds Kopyto guilty of defrauding the Plan ― an allegation that it had previously withdrawn from an Agreed Statement of Facts.

1987-1989    OLAP freezes Kopyto’s settled accounts withholding $150,000.00.

1989    Kopyto sues OLAP to unfreeze the fees for his settled accounts and pay him for all outstanding work.

1990    Kopyto writes a public letter to Attorney-General Ian Scott challenging him to charge him with criminal fraud.  Scott declines.

1990    Legal Aid pays Kopyto’s previously withheld fees and work-in-progress. No deductions for overbilling

On the third day in the witness box under searing cross-examination by Harry Kopyto, the Law Society’s (LSUC’s) chief witness, Adrian Greenaway, laid a bombshell. He blew a major hole in the Law Society’s efforts to deny Harry the right to continue working as a paralegal.  Greenaway admitted that Harry, disbarred in 1989 for allegedly defrauding the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, was never asked to pay the Plan back any fees that it paid him for the 643 accounts that the LSUC claimed were “overbilled”.  Indeed, all his legal accounts “frozen” during and after the disbarment were settled and paid as valid accounts. This admission reveals that the only fraud committed was by the LSUC itself in disbarring Harry.

Greenaway’s admission is the ultimate vindication of Harry’s character and exposes in the starkest terms the phony frame-up of Kopyto on trumped-up charges. It also vindicates Bencher Tom Carey who courageously backed Harry Kopyto at that time against his colleagues in the first written dissent in the LSUC’s 200-year history. As well, it shows why then Attorney-General Ian Scott refused to respond to Harry’s public letter challenging him to lay criminal charges.

Investigator Greenaway’s admissions are critical. Ultimately, the case against Harry’s good character rests on his disbarment for allegedly overbilling Legal Aid.  But there can be no fraud without deprivation.  And so the skein of lies against Harry’s good character continues to unravel as the blinding truth shimmers into the dark recesses of Osgoode Hall where Harry’s good character hearing is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. in the Museum Room on Friday November 11, 2011.

Chief Investigator Greenaway has already breached the web of deceit spun by LSUC detractors during earlier testimony when he admitted admiring Harry’s commitment to justice.

On November 2, 2011, Greenaway went even further. When asked if he was  aware of any misdeeds by Harry during 22 years of appearing as a paralegal in criminal, family or small claims court trials and motions, Greenaway unreservedly said “No.” This admission struck a deadly blow against the LSUC’s campaign to paint Harry as dishonest.  Greenaway also took issue with statements relied on by the Society that Harry believes that the legal system was corrupt.  He disagreed that Harry wanted “to tear down and smash” the legal system, which was one of the accusations of the LSUC Panel that recommended Harry’s disbarment in 1989. He described Harry again as a sincere and persistent fighter for his clients’ rights.  He even admitted that if Harry were “pervasively dishonest,” as the LSUC charges, his record in court appearances would have been strewn with findings of improprieties.

Greenaway a Man on a Tightrope

Greenaway’s concessions about Harry’s character were not made lightly.  He is a man on a tightrope.  Greenaway is attempting to deflect Harry’s charge that his investigation was biased from the start with admissions that Greenaway could not avoid making in any event.  He still characterized Harry’s efforts to refute false allegations of dishonesty in the media as efforts to distance himself from his bad character.  He still attacked Harry for showing no remorse and maintained his accusation that Harry would not co-operate with him in the investigation of his character.  That said, he also reaffirmed the bias against Harry by admitting that the decision to recommend a good character hearing–the ostensible purpose of the investigation–was made even before the investigation started.

Shaking it Rough

Law Society Chief Counsel, Susan Heakes, repeatedly tried to protect Greenaway from Kopyto’s penetrating cross-examination with objections that were largely over-ruled.  Although championing the exclusion of witnesses from hearing evidence that might influence them, she made sure that Greenaway was present when she formulated her objections.  Heakes also accused Harry of intentionally delaying the hearings for his own benefit as she does at every opportunity she can.  She went on to plead with the Panel to set additional dates for Harry’s hearings (she didn’t have to try too hard) which the LSUC waited two whole years to initiate.   Clearly, she falls within the definition of being “savvy” which the LSUC shamelessly advertises as one of the requirements for its senior staff. Still, despite Heake’s efforts, Greenaway still is shaking it rough as Harry heads into another full day of cross-examining him on Friday November 11, 2011.

The well-oiled LSUC machine, with its fearsome armada of lawyers, investigators, bureaucrats, media experts, image makers, point persons and careerists (500 employees in number and a budget of tens of millions of dollars) is not used to anyone standing up to them.  Lawyers usually shudder at the mention of the LSUC which they know plays the game with a stacked deck.

The LSUC is Big Law incarnate functioning at the intersection of Big Business and Establishment Politics. It is the elitist master of a profession that operates the legal institutions that grind the faces of the weak and poor into the dirt for the benefit of the powers that be.  Obedience to rules (their rules) is their functional definition of good character. Refusal to fit in is anathema to their credo.

Yet Harry is not backing down. He is putting their own character on trial in his good character hearing.  As they judge him, so too he puts them on trial to be judged by their own hypocritical standards as well in the eyes of the public.

Those eyes are what the LSUC usually shields itself from when it engages in the devious machinations against those who dare to challenge them. But in Harry’s case, dozens of observers continue to be present at each one of his multiple hearings as active witnesses. Their presence inhibits the LSUC as it attempts to act as Harry’s prosecutor, judge, jury and professional hangman all at the same time.  Those eyes of public scrutiny are still essential as Harry steps into the arena when the hearing resumes this Friday November 11, 2011.

Be there.

Harry Kopyto Defence Committee

At the end of the day on Monday October 24, 2011 the Law Society (LSUC) chief investigator into Harry Kopyto’s good character hearing looked pale and worn. A cop for 17 years in a dead-end job without prospects of promotion and looking to escape, Adrian Greenaway became the chief investigator in about 100 out of 240 grandparenting applications after he was hired by the LSUC in 2007.  On the stand for a second day and facing fierce cross-examination by Harry, Greenaway found himself tangled in some embarrassing revelations that have punched a hole in the LSUC’s prosecution.

First, he admitted that the decision to force Kopyto into the good character hearing grinder was made as soon as Harry applied to be grandparented, not at the end of an investigation as the LSUC claims.

Second, in an attempt to counter Kopyto’s charge of a biased investigation, Greenaway testified strenuously that he agreed that Harry was fearless in his commitment to justice and to exposing the frailties of the judicial system. This unscripted admission caught the entire hearing room by surprise as the LSUC had attacked Harry for using intemperate, offensive and disrespectful language in criticizing judicial institutions.  (In fact, Kopyto was charged with professional misconduct by the LSUC for saying that “the RCMP and courts are stuck together with crazy-glue” in the 1980s).  This shocking admission by Greenaway resulted in desperate objections by the panicking LSUC prosecutors who were quickly over-ruled.

Third, Greenaway admitted that he didn’t know who to believe in connection with one ex-client’s complaint about Harry. He admitted that Harry’s version could be credible.  He candidly admitted that his workload did not permit him to investigate the case properly.

LSUC Steamroller Sputters

Greenaway’s evidence became even more bizarre as the day wore on.  At one point, he said he wanted to meet Harry out of curiosity to ask him about a metaphor that Harry used to describe the good character hearings process to the media.

Greenaway was a foundational witness for the prosecution assigned to build a case against Harry. But his acknowledgement of Harry’s commitment to justice at whatever the personal cost to him, clashes dramatically with the prosecutors’ picture of Harry as dishonest and self-interested.  A gaping hole has opened in the evidentiary web spun by the prosecutors. Although far from fatal to the Law Society’s case, possibilities for fighting back abound.  The Law Society steamroller that was expected to roll over Kopyto has sputtered and choked. Harry is neatly but forcefully dissecting the evidence against him to expose the systemic bias of a system that dreads anyone in whom it cannot instill fear.

Greenaway’s evidence is far from over. Harry has just scratched the surface.

Fighting on Many Fronts

While the battle continues inside the staid Museum Room at Ogoode Hall that has become the arena for Harry’s good character hearings, Kopyto has opened new fronts for his campaign to use his hearing to promote affordable justice.  He has filed a Statement of Claim against the Law Society seeking the very same declarations that the Blight Panel refused to hear. These declarations challenge the Panel’s authority under the LSUC’s By-law 4 which eliminated more affordable paralegals from competing with lawyers in vast areas of legal practice.  Harry has also applied for leave to appeal the conservative Divisional Court’s backing of Blight’s decision.

The hearing room revelations have limited resonance when the fix is already in. Blight ordered all witnesses excluded though no one ran to the exit door despite an audience made up of Harry’s character witnesses. And, oh yes, you know the judges whose negative, often virulent opinions about Harry the Blight Panel has admitted into evidence against Harry during the last hearing day? Well, Harry is in the process of issuing subpoenas to each of the four judges and three benchers to attend his good character hearing to be cross-examined by him on their attacks on him.  After all, doesn’t he have a right to cross-examine his accusers?

The presence of the public to oversee the LSUC’s proceedings is especially important with witnesses testifying on the stand. It becomes more difficult for the LSUC to hide the weaknesses of their witnesses’ testimony and it became more difficult for the witnesses to give false evidence when observers are in the room. The more persons present who see the LSUC’s pretensions and manufactured evidence melt in the air, the greater the likelihood that justice may be done.

Harry is back before the Blight Panel on Wednesday November 2, 2011 at 9:30 a.m., Museum Room, Osgoode Hall. Greenaway is still on the stand.  There will be blood. But it remains to be seen whose it will be. Join us.

Harry Kopyto Defence Committee

The Law Society case against Kopyto is proceeding full steam ahead. Multiple hearing dates and witnesses against him have been lined up. Investigator Adrian Greenaway (a savvy ex-cop) is on the stand. On top of all this, public access to the hearings may be at threat.

The wind is in the Prosecutors’ sails. The Divisional Court decided October 11, 2011 to back up the Law Society Hearing Panel chaired by Margot Blight for refusing to hear Harry’s challenge to its jurisdictional authority.

Harry argues that the Panel functions as part of a scheme that denies affordable justice. He argues that the Blight Panel’s authority derives from a constitutionally flawed statute.  By-law 4 of the Law Society Act restricts access to affordable justice by allowing lawyers to govern their more affordable paralegal competitors. Already, the scope of practice of paralegals has been dramatically shredded by the By-law. Just another hostile takeover by a price-fixing monopoly.

The Law Society prosecutors were cracking their whips fast and furious over the Blight Panel’s heads on Thursday October 13, 2011.  There is a new bounce in their footsteps.  All of Harry’s prehearing motions, except some of his demands for disclosure, have been denied unanimously by the Panel.  The initiative is now with the prosecution.

Margot Blight is not Playing Coy

Margot Blight is not playing coy with the two lawyers directing Kopyto’s prosecution at the hearing.  She announced that she would be denying Harry’s request that proof of bad character in his hearing should be determined beyond a reasonable doubt. She admitted evidence that was not relevant because the documents were part of the Law Society’s investigative file. She admitted the rulings of hostile and biased opinions of judges who refused to allow Kopyto to represent his clients in their courts.  This means that Harry may not be allowed to refute their findings which must be given full effect.

With few exceptions, judges hate Kopyto.  They remember his searing attack in the 1980s on the court system’s link to police encapsulated in his famous phrase, “The police and the courts are stuck together with Krazy-Glue”. For this phrase, Kopyto was found guilty of contempt, challenged the law of “scandalizing the court” and succeeded in having it abolished by the Ontario Court of Appeal. However, the memory of judges is long…

More recently, Kopyto’s exposure of Toronto Family Court Judge Marvin Zuker for falsifying a transcript of Kopyto’s appearance before him won Harry no accolades from the judiciary.  The judges who the Law Society are relying on, who refused Kopyto audience, made all kinds of absurd attacks on him.  Some went so far as to allege that Harry believed that there was a conspiracy against him.  Kopyto may have no way of challenging their decisions.

Although all these decisions were made unanimously by the Panel on October 13, 2011, there were several occasions when the Panel adjourned the proceedings to consult each other.  Unanimity was not automatic…yet the two non-lawyer members of the Panel ended up following Margot Blight’s lead every time.

Public Access to Harry’s Hearing at Stake

The hearing ended on an ominous note.  Prior to hearing evidence, Margot Blight indicated agreement with the Law Society prosecutors’ motion to exclude witnesses from the Hearing Room because they may be influenced by evidence that they hear on the stand.  Kopyto protested that most of the persons present at the hearing room would be witnesses for him and accordingly would be excluded from the hearing room. Harry attacked this effort to exclude public scrutiny of his hearing as a tactic reminiscent of the Star Chamber.  Only Kopyto’s sharp attack on Blight’s rush to judgment compelled her to reopen her decision.  She gave him a week to make responding submissions on whether witnesses should be excluded.  However, the Law Society counsel, Susan Heakes, snidely hinted that the request was a maneuver to derail scheduled hearing dates while Harry could continue to practice. This underhanded attack on Harry’s motive hit home with Blight who immediately reduced his preparation time to respond to the motion to exclude witnesses to three days.  And she insisted that it be done in writing thereby limiting public oversight. Blight’s decision on the motion will be announced on October 24, 2011.

The Case Against Harry

The Law Society’s rush to justice is reaching a feverish pitch.  The Law Society hounds smell blood. Kopyto is likely the last of 140 or so grandparenting paralegals chosen to undergo good character hearings, the overwhelming majority of whom have been denied the right to practice their profession. But Kopyto is fighting back.  The Law Society’s credibility has been hurt by the protracted length of the hearings now entering its third year.  So they are anxious to shut Harry down.  But there is another reason why, Kopyto is special to the Law Society. Insolent criticism of their exercise of power is a threat to their authority and they mean to make an example of him.

To do this, the Law Society is out to paint a picture of Harry as dishonest.  Thus, a missing page from his credit rating report is deemed to be an effort to suppress evidence. His disbarment for allegedly defrauding the Ontario Legal Aid Plan is deemed evidence of bad character with nothing said about the fact that Legal Aid paid in full all Kopyto’s contentious legal aid accounts.  How can that be the case if Harry had committed fraud?

The Law Society accuses Harry of failing to cooperate in its investigation of his good character but Investigator Adrian Greenaway, who boasts of being able to work without control or supervision, knew his job was to build a case against Kopyto, not objectively consider his character without prejudgment.  Kopyto had no obligation to cooperate in an adversarial investigation carried out in bad faith, especially when legions of documents relevant to his interrogation were withheld from him.

Is Harry Kopyto Ungovernable?

In an opening statement delivered October 13, 2011 before calling Adrian Greenaway as a witness, prosecutor Susan Heakes described Harry as being “ungovernable”.  However, the question Harry asks is: who is to govern him?  Is it to be Big Law, which wants to restrict competition and maintain their price-fixing monopoly at the public’s expense? And who do the rules of his governing body serve?  Do they serve the public interest? Or do they serve the voracious acquisitiveness of a profession many of whose members are renowned for their astronomical fees and capacity to camouflage their true motives?

Harry has already admitted trenching on lawyers’ turf by helping clients who could not afford lawyers to prepare documents.  While Harry usually did so in the clients’ names and with the clients’ agreement to avoid making an issue of his role, which was irrelevant to his clients’ case, he never denied his involvement.  He frequently used his office address and fax number including sometimes his telephone number on these documents.

Similarly, lawyers routinely draft pleadings for clients who can’t afford to put them on the record in the client’s name without any suggestion of impropriety. However, the two-faced Law Society would prefer to have Harry’s clients have no representation at all than to have Harry’s assistance.

The Drum Roll Begins

The ghostly minders of the Blight Panel, those who pay its members and who assigned them to Kopyto’s good character hearing and to whom they ultimately report, have grown impatient with Harry.  They want to slam the door shut on the debate over the paralegal takeover.  Harry’s hearing has lasted far too long.  His accusations have received some resonance.  There are more paralegals than the Law Society wishes to shake a stick at who look to Harry’s struggle as one being waged on behalf of all of them, for meaningful professional independence instead of being an internal colony of a competing monopoly. And many members of the public also look to Harry for inspiration in their own struggles for justice that only the rich can usually afford.

The Law Society is trying to throw every piece of mud they can dig up at Harry in the hope that some (or all) of it will stick.  Susan Heakes cleverly made a reference to the costs award against Harry Kopyto granted by the Divisional Court two days earlier when he sought an order to compel the Blight Panel to rule on his constitutional challenge to their authority. This reference by her was irrelevant to Harry’s character because the law permits 30 days to pay costs. Heakes knows that. So why the reference?  Heakes was telegraphing Blight, as if she was not aware, that the Divisional Court backed Blight in ducking Kopyto’s challenge and, presumably, will back any decision to excommunicate Kopyto from the paralegal profession. Big Law is fed up. The drum roll leading to Kopyto’s defrocking has begun.

But Harry’s fight is far from over. Kopyto knows that the ultimate reason for attempting to extinguish his career is to silence him.  He has played a fierce role as a gadfly and critic of the judicial system for decades, which annoyed Big Law to no end.

Interestingly, the Law Society has adjusted its catalogue of charges against Kopyto by dropping from their list of charges exhibits and documents in which he has criticized the courts and spoken out against some judges and the Law Society.  They want to hide their true motives in attacking Kopyto’s character. They want to undermine his credibility as a voice for critics of a system that has become a mockery to the vast majority who cannot even access it. And they know that Harry is a public figure taken seriously by many in the media.

Kopyto continues his fight to force Blight to rule on the constitutional flaw in By-law 4 which appoints her as his judge. He has already filed an Application for Leave to Appeal in the Ontario Court of Appeal. He is planning a court proceeding that will allow him to adjudicate the issues that Blight does not want to deal with.

He is slated to cross-examine Adrian Greenaway on Monday October 24, 2011 in the Museum Room, Osgoode Hall at 9:30 a.m.  The Law Society is set to attack the public and accessible character of the hearing. Your solidarity and presence has never been more important.

Harry Kopyto Defence Committee

The Divisional Court’s decision to back the Law Society Panel ruling on Harry Kopyto’s character came as a shock to his supporters.  They expected an exchange of views. They wanted the Court’s assessment on whether the Panel could sweep under the rug Harry’s challenge to a law that gives lawyers the right to govern and judge their competitors.  They wanted to know why the Panel judging Harry did not have to respond to Harry’s charge that they lacked administrative independence from benchers elected by lawyers and that they kowtowed to Big Law’s agenda.

They wanted to hear why the Law Society Hearing Panel didn’t control their own administration and assignments — so important to an independent judiciary. And they wanted to know how Panel Chair Margot Blight’s plea of institutional incompetence — the issue of whether lawyers should judge their competitors was too hot to handle — could justify refusing to respond to these vital questions.

Swinton Snarls at Harry

Instead, they got a largely silent court whose hostility permeated the room from the opening bang of the gavel. Chaired by a former conservative advisor to federal and provincial governments, Judge Katherine Swinton repeatedly tried to deflect Harry’s 45-minute presentation while the two other judges on the wings practiced their stoney expressions.  Swinton’s accusation that Harry wanted the Law Society completely out of the worklives of paralegals was made with a snarl of contempt. Harry’s response, that the issue before the Court was his right to question the institutional independence of the Hearing Panel, was never addressed by Swinton.  His explanation that the Law Society’s By-law 4 resulted in lawyers’ reducing access to affordable justice by cutting the services that paralegals can provide fell on deaf ears.

Not even once did the Court attempt to address any of his simple, clear, emphatic points in support of an order requiring Margot Blight’s Hearing Panel to rule on his challenge to its independence from the pressures of the legal profession that sets her salary, assigns her cases and decides her term of office.

Divisional Court — A Shameless Rubber Stamp

In fact, in its stampede to march lockstep with her Law Society cousins across the ornate hallway in the East Wing of Osgoode Hall, the Swinton Court made mincemeat of clear law that says that there is no discretion to refuse a ruling on an issue of jurisdiction and natural justice before judging a case on the merits. Shamelessly, the Divisional Court, renowned in legal circles as a rubberstamp for government decisions, lived down to its reputation, by ruling precisely the opposite.

The solid front presented by the Court in empathy with their professional executioners next door reveals how deeply threatened the legal system is by Harry’s revelation that the Emperor has no clothes. That those who govern their competitors are in a conflict of interest requires no elaboration.  All Harry asked for was an order to compel a decision to be made.  All Swinton’s barbs and snippets of attack on him were directed to defending the Law Society’s monopoly which was not the issue presented before this Court which deals only with procedure — but it most certainly was guiding their thoughts and actions.

There was one revealing glimmer in the Court’s decision.  It shredded the Law Society’s request for compensation of its $17,000 bill of costs by reducing it  to $5,000. That was unusual.  Such a severe reduction was highly inconsistent with the Court’s practice.  Was the Divisional Court subliminally signaling its embarrassment at denying Harry what the law required it to grant?  Or was it an insipid effort to give the impression of fairness and balance so lacking in its decision?

It’s Not Over

Whatever their motive, the Divisional Court’s wholehearted endorsement of their kissing cousins in the East Wing of Osgoode Hall shows their rigid, unyielding disdain against anyone questioning the power of Big Law. But the decision of the judges to circle their wagons around the poor beleaguered Law Society may not be the final act in this drama.  Harry is fond of telling everyone that his efforts in the 1980s to win his client, socialist activist Ross Dowson, the right to lay a charge against the RCMP for admitted criminal conduct, was consistently rejected at every court level without dissent. Nonetheless, eight years later he succeeded in reaffirming the historic right of private prosecution in a unanimous decision in Dowson’s favour by the Supreme Court of Canada. Harry has already filed a motion to appeal the Divisional Court’s decision.

Sparks Will Fly

Harry was buoyed by the solid support of the public. Over 40 members of the public who found the courtroom, bore witness that Harry’s ongoing support remains solid and growing.  This was further borne out with the revelation that, as a result of confusion over the Courtroom’s location, about 15 of his supporters who used the Law Society’s entrance to Osgoode Hall were told that no proceedings involving Harry were taking place. Public support and presence at his hearings has acted as a contravening force against the institutional bias and dependence of the Blight Panel on their minders in the dark recesses of the Law Society’s archaic chambers.  Such broad support is sorely needed at Harry’s upcoming hearing on Monday October 24, 2011 at 9:30 a.m., Museum Room, Osgoode Hall as Harry cross-examines the Law Society’s Chief Investigator in a confrontation that is sure to ignite sparks.

Harry Kopyto Defence Committee