Dirty secret not so secret in city’s legal community

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This article was published 03/09/2010 (5592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT was the dirty little secret that everybody seemed to know about.

Revelations this week a Manitoba judge and her lawyer husband were caught in a sex scandal may have surprised members of the public, but it barely caused a ripple within Winnipeg’s tight-knit legal community.

"It was known years ago," a veteran lawyer told the Free Press on Thursday.

"It’s an old story," shrugged another.

Allan Fineblit, chief executive officer of the Law Society of Manitoba, confirmed the province’s governing body for lawyers has been aware of at least some details of the scandal since 2003. Yet no action was taken until computer programmer Alex Chapman came forward with a formal complaint less than two months ago.

That has some people in the legal community wondering whether a scandal could have been avoided if the issue had been dealt with sooner — and possibly spared Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas the embarrassment she is now facing.

Chapman, 44, went public this week with allegations his former lawyer, Jack King, tried to coerce him into having sex with King’s wife, Douglas, while representing him on a divorce case. Douglas, who was a lawyer at the time in the same firm of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, was appointed to the Queen’s Bench Family Division in 2005.

Chapman filed a complaint about King’s conduct with senior partners at the law firm in June 2003.

Sources told the Free Press the law society was aware of the complaint by Chapman to the law firm, along with a subsequent settlement, but took no action against King once he agreed to stop practising and seek medical help. Their only requirement was for him to provide a letter from a doctor stating he was healthy enough to return to work, which he did in 2004.

Fineblit said this week they didn’t pursue the matter further because they had "no complainant." He doesn’t believe there has been any attempt at a "cover-up," certainly not by his organization.

The law society is now investigating King for professional misconduct. Fineblit expects a decision to be made by the end of the month.

Lawyers interviewed this week by the Free Press said they didn’t know about the $25,000 payout to Chapman but had heard rumblings about King’s illicit offer to Chapman and the nude photos that exist of Douglas.

"We didn’t know all of the facts, but we certainly knew some of them," said one.

King’s lawyer, Bill Gange, is urging the Law Society to dismiss Chapman’s complaint against his client on the basis it has no merit and deals with an issue that was already settled privately.

As well, Gange said Douglas previously disclosed details of her husband’s issues with Chapman to the committee that was vetting her nomination as a Queen’s Bench judge in 2005.

"She disclosed that there had been a problem. I don’t know how detailed it was, because frankly I don’t know how much Lori knew," Gange has said.

www.mikeoncrime.com