Richard Yan-Yun Liu

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

Richard Liu, a BC sole practitioner called in 1992 practising mainly real estate law, entered a Rule 3-7.1 consent agreement admitting professional misconduct across twelve client files. Between 2016 and 2020 he failed to make required gatekeeper inquiries, permitted his trust account (handling millions of dollars, including large offshore payments) to be used without providing sufficient legal services, acted in conflicts of interest by loaning clients funds through his trust account, used his own numbered company as a nominee lender to conceal lender identities, and failed to comply with client ID/verification rules. The Chair noted the misconduct was very serious but found no evidence of crime or fraud. Liu had no prior record, cooperated, admitted early, and showed remorse. He agreed to a three-month suspension effective February 1, 2023. No fine or costs were stated.

Duties found breached:

• Proper termination and return of instructions
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct was very serious
• Involved large trust account sums (e.g. $10,190,000 across six files) and multiple third-party/offshore payments
• Prolonged conduct over several years (2016-2020)

Mitigating factors:

• No evidence the Lawyer committed or facilitated any crime or fraud
• No prior professional conduct record
• Early willingness to admit misconduct and full cooperation, saving Law Society time and resources
• Remorse and apology
• Commitment to change practices, ceased making loans to clients and ceased taking instructions from TL