The Law Society of British Columbia Tribunal has ordered a ten-week suspension and ongoing trust-account supervision for lawyer Desmond Greg Friedland after he admitted professional misconduct involving an estate retainer, repeated improper withdrawals and false or misleading answers on an annual trust report.
The October 19, 2026 decision, Law Society of British Columbia v. Friedland, 2026 LSBC 20, accepted a joint proposal by Friedland and the Law Society. The suspension is to begin 60 days after the decision, unless the parties agree in writing to another date. The reasons do not establish that it has begun.
The panel also ordered six hours of approved continuing legal education in wills and estates within six months, and $1,000 in costs payable to the Law Society within 30 days. The costs are not compensation to clients or a fine.
More than $1 million accepted without confirming authority
The estate matter involved a client who was neither an executor nor a beneficiary under the will. Friedland relied on her statement that she was communicating the wishes of family members abroad, without obtaining their confirmation or documentary authority. He also had no signed retainer agreement specifying his legal services.
He accepted $1,006,947.44 in apartment-sale proceeds and a further $1,930.35 associated with remaining strata funds into trust. He had not provided legal services for the sale, applied for probate or confirmed the intended beneficiaries. His belief that the will would be invalidated did not give his client authority to direct the estate at the time.
The panel found that the circumstances objectively called for reasonable inquiries. A lawyer cannot delegate that responsibility to the client or treat a trust account as a convenient channel for money. Friedland’s failure was a marked departure from the conduct expected of lawyers and amounted to professional misconduct.
The parties distinguished the estate conduct from more serious cases in which a lawyer’s trust account facilitated criminal activity. They said the client was not intending to act illegally and no money laundering or crime was being facilitated. The tribunal’s finding was a failure to investigate objectively suspicious circumstances, not a finding that Friedland or his client committed a crime.
Repeated withdrawals and inaccurate records
Separate trust-account misconduct extended over several years. The panel found improper withdrawals totalling more than $38,000, producing shortages that remained outstanding for periods ranging from eight to 1,653 days. The shortages were eliminated through cheques from the firm’s general account or later client deposits.
The accounting failures also included not identifying and recording the source and ownership of incoming funds, failing to prepare timely monthly reconciliations, and failing to maintain required account-balance listings. Inaccurate client ledgers prevented Friedland from reliably determining how much money was held for each client and contributed to the withdrawals and shortages.
The panel characterized the unauthorized use of client funds as misappropriation through recklessness and gross negligence. It expressly found that the misappropriation was not intentional or knowingly dishonest and that clients suffered no actual financial loss. Those conclusions did not excuse the conduct: unauthorized withdrawals exposed clients to risk, and the repeated breaches went beyond an isolated administrative error.
Friedland also certified a trust report containing seven false or misleading answers about matters including the connection between funds and legal services, current accounting records, billing before withdrawals, reconciliations and unresolved shortages. The panel found professional misconduct because inaccurate self-reporting undermined the Law Society’s ability to regulate trust accounts and protect the public.
Why the panel accepted suspension rather than disbarment
The parties proceeded by an agreed statement of facts, admissions and a joint sanction proposal rather than the scheduled three-day hearing. The panel still had to determine whether the admitted facts proved misconduct. Under Rule 5-6.5, however, it could not substitute different disciplinary action unless the proposal was contrary to the public interest in the administration of justice.
Misappropriation normally points toward disbarment, the panel explained, unless the circumstances show that the public can be protected without it. Here, it accepted the combination of a substantial suspension and continuing restrictions. The absence of intentional dishonesty mattered, but so did the protective effect of supervision rather than simply a promise to improve.
The panel reviewed a draft Trust Supervision Agreement and found it would prevent Friedland from operating a trust account on his own: another signatory would be needed for dealings with trust funds. It accepted the proposed ongoing supervision as a permanent condition, not a restriction ending automatically with the suspension.
Friedland’s disciplinary history weighed against him. Earlier interventions had addressed similar accounting problems, including a 2017 conduct review and a two-month suspension imposed in 2021. The panel found that he had not made all the improvements promised after the conduct review and that repeated opportunities to correct his practices had not been sufficient.
His admissions and agreement to the proposed sanctions nevertheless saved hearing time and resources and were mitigating factors. The ten-week suspension exceeds the earlier two-month suspension, while supervision and education address the risk of recurrence. The panel found the overall proposal within the range of comparable sanctions and consistent with public protection.
The order governs future practice
Friedland must not operate a trust account except under a Trust Supervision Agreement approved by the Law Society. The order does not prohibit all future legal practice or require disbarment, and the reasons do not confirm payment of costs, completion of education or any later variation of the suspension’s start date.
The decision underlines that trust-account responsibility remains personal to the lawyer even when routine accounting is delegated. A lack of client loss does not turn repeated unauthorized withdrawals or unreliable regulatory reporting into acceptable practice.
