James William Lees

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

James W. Lees, KC, a long-serving BC Prosecution Service prosecutor who also worked as a federal standing agent, admitted in a Rule 3-7.1 consent agreement (approved May 9, 2025) that between 2006 and 2020 he billed the federal prosecution service unreasonably for waiting, travel, and availability time while simultaneously employed full-time as a salaried provincial prosecutor, breaching Code rule 3.6-1 and constituting professional misconduct under s. 38(4) of the Legal Profession Act. He received double payment for court time. No dishonesty was found; the tribunal noted he may have honestly believed his billings were reasonable. He agreed to a practice restriction barring a return to practicing status unless employed as BCPS Crown Counsel or with the Executive Director's permission. No fine or costs were stated.

Duties found breached:

• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Significant increase in billings over time without confirming reasonableness
• Received double payment for time in court (BCPS salary plus federal billings)
• Very high billings averaging 2622 hours per year over 15 years, in addition to full-time salaried work

Mitigating factors:

• No prior disciplinary record
• Relied on direction given when he commenced federal agent work as to how to bill
• Handled work openly in court, widely known at Surrey Provincial Court
• Submitted time through Firm which reviewed/approved and PPSC which audited; never alerted to any concern until 2021
• May have honestly believed his billings were reasonable
• Reputation as hard-working, capable and respected prosecutor; misconduct involved billing not quality of work