Tanya Latoya Walters Powell
Allegation / charges
Guilty of Professional Misconduct | Disciplinary Committee decision delivered December 3, 2021. ||Restitution ordered, Fined | Disciplinary Committee decision delivered March 09, 2022 View PDF DECISION OF THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL COMPLAINT NO: 176/2018 BETWEEN …
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Attorney Lancelot Cowan handled the sale of his client's house and held the proceeds in trust. Fraudsters compromised the client's email account and sent changed wire instructions; the Attorney transferred the funds to a third-party account without verifying the new instructions, and the client never received her money. The Committee, relying on South African and Canadian authorities on attorneys' fiduciary duties over trust funds, found the Attorney breached Canon VII(b)(ii) (failure to account) and Canon I(b) (failure to maintain the honour and dignity of the profession by not accepting responsibility). It found the negligence did not rise to 'inexcusable and deplorable' negligence, and expressly rejected suggestions that the Attorney created the fake email account to defraud the client (no dishonesty). Other alleged canon breaches were dismissed as unproven. Sanction was deferred to a mitigation hearing.
Duties found breached:
Duties engaged
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Documents
Source: https://www.generallegalcouncil.org/judgement/tanya-latoya-walters-powell-complaint-no-176-of-2018/