Decision record
Dolden Wallace Folick, LLP
JurisdictionCanada — British Columbia
BodyLaw Society of British Columbia (LSBC)
Professionlawyer
DateSeptember 15, 2021
HearingRule 3-7.1 Consent Agreement | Summary
OutcomeRule 3-7.1 Consent Agreement | Summary
Allegation / charges
Rule 3-7.1 Consent Agreement | Summary
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
SanctionFine
FineCAD 30,000
Dishonesty foundNo
Dolden Wallace Folick, LLP, an insurance-focused BC law firm, entered a consent agreement admitting professional misconduct for failing to deposit client overpayments (trust funds) into pooled trust accounts as soon as practicable, contrary to Rule 3-58, in 332 instances totaling $103,851.70 between October 2018 and March 2021. Overpayments were held in general accounts but tracked as 'general retainers'; no clients lost funds. The firm corrected its procedures and agreed to pay a $30,000 fine. No dishonesty was found.
Duties found breached:
Mitigating factors:
- No prior Professional Conduct Record
- No clients were short or missing funds; all client money properly accounted for
- Not done to benefit the firm; administrative practice in place since 1994
- Practice not identified as non-compliant in two prior compliance audits
- Cooperated and made prompt corrective changes to accounting procedures once identified
- Staff took Law Society course/seminar on proper trust accounting