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Lawyer's Duty of Candour

Ken Proudman Executive
 view Arbitrator profile
  BARR LLP
   Edmonton, Alberta


An excellent summary of our duty of candour comes from the unsuccessful appeal of Nav Virk's disbarment:

"The duty of candour, however, will be informed by its context, here the duty of a lawyer (as an officer of the court) when making submissions to that court. In that situation there is a positive duty on the lawyer to turn his or her mind to the accuracy of statements that are being made. In order to be “candid”, the Law Society is entitled to expect that the lawyer was confident that the statement being made was accurate, which would imply some duty to establish the truth of the statement before making it. From the opposite perspective, to be candid a lawyer must acknowledge when he or she does not know a fact, or does not know whether a statement is true. It is not unreasonable to hold a professional who is making representations to a court to a standard of reasonable diligence as to self-informing, coupled with frankness about limitations of his or her state of knowledge, and forthrightness about the extent of what is believed to be accurate." (Virk v Law Society of Alberta, 2022 ABCA 2 at para 21).

My thanks to Barb Cotton of Bottom Line Research for sharing this gem in her clippings service: https://bottomlineresearch.ca/complimentary-clippings.html


3 2 years ago

Anonymous 2017
   Edmonton Region, Alberta


So, in other words, eventually the chickens come home to roost.

0 2 years ago

Dustin J .Tkachuk
  Lawrence & Tkachuk
   Edmonton, Alberta


well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my actions

1 2 years ago

Anonymous 2017
   Edmonton Region, Alberta


The fact that this writing style is basically word salad shouldnt be pinned only the court. I’ve always thought the duty of candour or being candid was unnecessary in light of all the other obligations. Like can a person who is not misleading, who is competent, who acts with integrity be anything other than open, frank, candid etc? So when we come to examine how someone did under that obligation, it is no surprise we get such clunky and uninspired writing. Get to whats at stake: justice cannot be done unless everyone involved is guarding against unreliable information, and the lawyers who do not do so do not deserve the privilege to continue their role as they cannot serve the public. Why use weak sauce terms like candour when we’re really talking about knavery or unscrupulous behaviour.

0 2 years ago

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