Toronto lawyer Jeremy Diamond of Diamond and Diamond now faces penalty listening to

Toronto private damage lawyer Jeremy Diamond may face suspension after a Regulation Society of Ontario tribunal rejected his request to withdraw his admission {of professional} misconduct regarding deceptive promoting.

Final month, Diamond argued he was “uninformed” when he pleaded responsible, and that he believed the disciplinary panel could be obligated to impose the minor penalty of a reprimand collectively proposed by the prosecutors and his personal attorneys.

However in a choice launched this week, the panel concluded Diamond’s admissions {of professional} misconduct “weren’t uninformed” as a result of “we discover that Mr. Diamond was conscious that the joint submission might be rejected,” tribunal chair Malcolm Mercer wrote.

Diamond admitted that he accepted the opinion of his lead counsel Brian Greenspan that it will be inconceivable for the joint penalty submission to be rejected based mostly on his 48 years of expertise as a lawyer, however understood it was legally potential, the panel wrote.

Diamond is the face of the agency Diamond & Diamond identified throughout the nation for the agency’s billboards, TV and radio spots boasting “nothing is more durable than a diamond.”

In 2021 — after shedding a bid to get the case tossed out by claiming he was being unfairly focused for advertising and marketing practices that others have interaction in —Diamond admitted earlier than a disciplinary panel that between 2013 and 2017 he improperly marketed private damage authorized providers that he didn’t present, failing to reveal “clearly and prominently” that Diamond & Diamond referred hundreds of potential purchasers to different attorneys for charges.

He additionally admitted improperly advertising and marketing authorized providers that reference awards “which don’t genuinely mirror the authorized efficiency or high quality of authorized providers offered by … Diamond & Diamond.”

Diamond’s attorneys and legislation society prosecutors collectively submitted a reprimand was the suitable penalty. Nonetheless, Mercer stated he was involved that amounted to a slap on the wrist and indicated a harsher punishment was warranted.

“Had I identified that that was a risk, I might by no means have admitted to the misconduct, and would have had a listening to,” Diamond stated in that listening to.

The panel as an alternative discovered this week “that Mr. Diamond was not uninformed as a result of, assessed objectively, there was no data that was unknown to him that falls inside the scope of what a licensee should know to make an knowledgeable admission of misconduct.”

The long-running authorized saga now strikes to the punishment part, the place penalties for skilled misconduct can vary from a reprimand or superb to suspension and disbarment.

Something harsher than a reprimand, “can be instantly appealed,” Greenspan stated in an interview Tuesday.

He referred to as the tribunal choice “surprising” for the reason that “hierarchy on the legislation society” had signed off on the reprimand as an acceptable penalty.

A potential suspension that entails not speaking with the general public may current very “sensible issues” for Diamond whose picture seems on promoting throughout Canada, Greenspan stated.

A Toronto Star investigation in 2016 into the advertising and marketing and referral practices of Diamond discovered that he and his agency had for a few years been attracting hundreds of would-be purchasers after which referring them to different attorneys for generally hefty referral charges.

Former purchasers the Star interviewed stated they had been typically unaware that they had been referred, or {that a} referral charge had been paid. The investigation additionally revealed that Diamond, who’s described as an “award-winning private damage lawyer,” had by no means tried a case himself, in line with his personal testimony in a authorized matter.

Greenspan has instructed the tribunal the allegations Diamond admitted to had been from “chapters closed way back” and have been addressed responsibly.

“That is their previous … this isn’t their current or future as a agency, and that they’ve moved on in a accountable means, respectful of the potential for confusion,” Greenspan stated, including “there was by no means a thought by those that marketed Diamond & Diamond that they had been in actual fact deceptive or deceiving anybody.”

The agency has additionally developed and grown, protecting between 90 and 95 per cent of recordsdata in home, he stated.

The agency way back eliminated references to awards, regardless of the actual fact “numerous different authorized professionals” proceed to make use of related advertising and marketing methods, he stated.

A date for the penalty listening to has not but been set.

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