A longtime Guelph lawyer is no longer allowed to practice law in Ontario, though he retired before that decision was made.
On Oct. 8, a Law Society Tribunal revoked David Starr's licence after finding him responsible for professional misconduct including the sexual harassment of staff members and financial misdealings.
"I regret any harm my actions caused to my former staff. As the person in charge of my law practice, I failed to set appropriate professional boundaries, particularly during the pandemic. I also made a financial error with one client – an error I corrected within days. This was not a pattern of behaviour," Starr said in a statement provided to GuelphToday through his lawyer.
"I have fully cooperated with the tribunal process. I closed my practice with my formal retirement in 2023.”
A tribunal panel found Starr “engaged in a series of incidents involving verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature” involving two staff members between 2005 and 2021.
Many of the established allegations against Starr stem from his involvement with one particular client, identified in the hearing notice as EF.
Starr was found to have knowingly assisted EF in “dishonesty, fraud, crime, or illegal conduct” on several occasions between 2017 and 2021.
They include:
- providing EF with a $25,000 trust cheque in support of their mortgage application when EF only had $6,500 in trust, and having “misapplied $18,500 of client trust funds” to EF in support of that mortgage application;
- concealing and converting $57,500 in cash from EF through his personal and trust accounts;
- using his trust account for purposes not related to the provision of legal services in the amount of $15,000 and disbursing those funds back to EF;
- suggesting a scheme to “clean” EF’s money by pretending to employ her in order to conceal the source of her anticipated receipt of $106,000;
- and receiving an aggregate amount of $42,500 from EF in relation to one client matter.
In previous comments to GuelphToday, Starr, who was first licenced to practice law in 1981, defended his actions and claimed the client was “involved in what can be labelled as near human trafficking” and said she provided him with “deposits to protect those funds from those who would have taken advantage of her.”
He further stated “those funds were recorded and reported, to the penny, to my solicitor’s trust account, of which the Law Society is aware. From time to time, she would ask for part of her money. Was I expected to not return her own funds to her?” his statement reads. “In the end, those funds were used to purchase a home and investments for my client and her children.”
