Lancelot A. St. Martin Cowan

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The complainant sold her house and the proceeds were held in trust by the attorney, Lancelot Cowan. Fraudsters compromised the complainant's email account and sent altered wire instructions; the attorney, without verifying the changed bank details, transferred the proceeds to a third-party fraudster's account. The Committee, relying on South African and Canadian authorities on fiduciary duty over trust funds, found the attorney failed to account to his client (Canon VII(b)(ii)) and breached Canon I(b) by not accepting responsibility for the loss. The Panel expressly rejected insinuations that the attorney himself created a fake email account to defraud the complainant, finding them without merit. It also found his conduct did not amount to inexcusable and deplorable negligence. The remaining alleged canon breaches were dismissed as unproven. Sanction was deferred to a separate mitigation hearing.

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money