James William Lees

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

James W. Lees, K.C., a BC lawyer, entered a consent agreement (approved 9 May 2025) admitting professional misconduct under s. 38(4) of the Legal Profession Act for billing unreasonably between 2006 and 2020 for federal prosecution agent work while employed full-time as a BCPS prosecutor, contrary to rule 3.6-1 of the Code. His billing practices (including travel, availability, and waiting time, sometimes while addressing provincial files) resulted in double payment and were not fair and reasonable to the PPSC. No dishonesty was found; the tribunal noted he may have honestly but mistakenly believed his billings were reasonable. The sanction was a practice restriction preventing him from changing 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:

• Very high billings over an extended period (average 2622 hours per year for 15 years), in addition to full-time BCPS salary
• Received double payment for time in court (BCPS salary plus federal billings)
• Failed to contact agent supervisor to confirm billing appropriateness despite significant increase in work and billings

Mitigating factors:

• No prior professional conduct record/disciplinary history
• Given direction on how to bill when he began federal agent work and relied on it
• Handled both BCPS and PPSC work in open court; work was widely known and transparent
• Time entries submitted through the Firm, understood to be reviewed and audited by Firm and PPSC; never alerted to concerns until 2021
• May have honestly believed his billings were reasonable
• Reputation as a hard-working, capable and respected prosecutor; misconduct related to billing not quality of work