The Pickpockets of the Twilight Zone

I have a certain amount of respect for truly skillful professional thieves. The Great Train Robbers, for example, pulled off a heist that required imagination, finicky planning, luck, and nerves of steel. They also didn’t make up a story that they were entitled to the money.

But for the band of low-grade pickpockets called the Law Society of Ontario to whom I just shelled out $211.65 protection money, I have no respect.

In some ways, I’m ashamed of myself for rolling over and letting myself be extorted without much of a fight. At the same time, I have a limited number of days left on this planet (as do you) and I’ve concluded that it is more efficient and cost-effective for me to accept this shakedown rather than mount a costly and time-consuming campaign against the Law Society. Did I sell my principles too cheap?

By now, most readers are saying, “But Norm, I thought you were retired from the practice of law!” And you’d be quite correct. But the problem is that the Law Society is a chronic disease for which the only known cures are disbarment and death, neither of which I relish. Once the Society has its feeding tube into your veins, they don’t want to take it out. In nature, this is called this parasitism.

Now, to be honest, I’m only paying 10% of the full practicing-rate fees. For those of you of a religious bent, you’ll recognize that as a tithe, and like a tithe, it is tax-deductible. But if I had my druthers, I’d prefer to give my money to an organization that at least held out that it was of some use to the poor and downtrodden.

The technical ruse by which the LSO keeps its talons in my back is that I continue to look after one estate of which I am the executor and another by way of power of attorney. “Aha!,” they say, “you scallywag! You’re still doing legal-related work, so we’re going to keep an eye on you! And, we’re going to charge you for that! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!”

Now, of course, this is utter nonsense. The Law Society is superfluous. If I screw up or run off with any money, there is the Public Guardian and Trustee, there are the courts, and oh yes, there are some beneficiaries who are waiting for their money, and they all know how to count. There are accountants and investment advisors and bankers and a host of other players involved in these matters, and they would probably notice if I went missing with the money.

And it’s probably also a safe bet that a lawyer who has practiced thirty-seven years and in that time faithfully handled hundreds of millions of dollars of trust funds is not likely to embezzle a couple of modest estates.

Add to that the fact that acting as executor or attorney for property is not the sole purview of lawyers. Accountants and trust officers and plumbers and nurses and chicken thieves are all legally entitled to act in these roles, and the Law Society makes no effort to regulate or supervise them, simply because they have no legal claim to do so.

In other words, the Law Society’s claim is an empty one- it has no statutory authority or obligation to supervise me in these roles. They are just making it up, and then sending me the bill.

But just to prove their sincerity, the Law Society did in fact run a spot audit on my estates. The auditor was a lovely woman, courteous and efficient, and as one would hope, thorough to a fault. And at the end of the day, if it were high school, I would have got A+.

However, by my estimates, the effort had to have set the Law Society back three to five thousand dollars. If there is anything upon which the LSO and I agree, it is that I need to live to be at least a hundred and have the odd estate so they get their money back.

There’s another interesting twist, and that is that this particular stickup only applies to persons over the age of sixty-five. I daresay this offends the Charter. The Law Society, alone in the world, can be counted on to make ageism a virtue.

However, to be fair, there are benefits to being chained to the Law Society’s wall: If I’m ever in Toronto, I can eat (for a price) at the Law Society Dining Room and order a glass from their world-renowned wine cellar. I get copies of the Minutes of Convocation, tedious yet earnest legalese about endless discussions about nothing much. And I can use the Great Library, just for old time’s sake.

And, of course, if I were to decide that the joys and freedom of retirement were just too much to bear, my readmission to practice would be simplified. The shimmering excitement of that prospect keeps me awake at night, as you might imagine.

So, there it is. Part of me wants to spend most of the rest of my remaining time on earth, and a good deal of my resources, taking on these cheap pickpockets, just on principle. Then I think of Don Quixote, and I think of all the other interesting and useful things I have yet to do, so I keep writing yearly cheques for $211.65.

I guess now you know my price.