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Code of Professional Conduct
CHAPTER XV
RESPONSIBILITY TO THE PROFESSION GENERALLY
RULE
The lawyer should assist in maintaining the integrity of the profession and should participate in its activities.1
Commentary
Guiding Principles
1. Unless the lawyer who tends to depart from proper professional conduct is checked at an early stage, loss or
damage to clients or others may ensue. Evidence of minor breaches may, on investigation, disclose a more serious
situation or may indicate the beginning of a course of conduct that would lead to serious breaches in the future.
It is, therefore, proper (unless it be privileged or otherwise unlawful) for a lawyer to report to a governing
body any occurrences involving a breach of this Code. Where, however, there is a reasonable likelihood that someone
will suffer serious damage as a consequence of an apparent breach, for example where a shortage of trust funds
is involved, the lawyer has an obligation to the profession to report the matter unless it is privileged or otherwise
unlawful to do so. In all cases, the report must be made bona fide without malice or ulterior motive.2 Further, subject to local rules, the lawyer must not act on a client's
instructions to recover from another lawyer funds allegedly misappropriated by that other lawyer unless the client
authorizes disclosure to the governing body and the lawyer makes such disclosure.
2. The lawyer has a duty to reply promptly to any communication from the governing body.3
3. The lawyer should not in the course of a professional practice write letters, whether to a client, another lawyer
or any other person, that are abusive, offensive or otherwise totally inconsistent with the proper tone of a professional
communication from a lawyer.4
Participation in Professional Activities
4. In order that the profession may discharge its public responsibility of providing independent and competent
legal services, the individual lawyer should do everything possible to assist the profession to function properly
and effectively. In this regard, participation in such activities as law reform, continuing legal education, tutorials,
legal aid programs, community legal services, professional conduct and discipline, liaison with other professions
and other activities of the governing body or local, provincial or national associations, although often time-consuming
and without tangible reward, is essential to the maintenance of a strong, independent and useful profession.5
NOTES
1. Cf. CBA-COD 14; CBA 5(1); ABA-MR 8; ABA Canon 1.
"The legal profession ... has emerged over the centuries in order to fill a pressing public need for protection
... under the law of the rights and liberties of the individual, however humble, if necessary against the state
itself.", IBA introductory.
"Public confidence in the profession would be shaken if such conduct were tolerated ... no solicitor could
escape [striking off] simply by showing that there had been no dishonesty and no concealment, and that no client
had suffered ...", per Parker, L.C.J. in re a Solicitor (1959), 193 Sol. Jour. 875 (Q.B.D.).
2. Cf. CBA 5(1); Ont. 13; B.C. F-3; ABA DR 1-103, EC 1-4, Alta. 22: "It is conduct unbecoming ... not to [report
instances] when they clearly involve a shortage of trust funds or a breach of an undertaking."
3. Cf. Ont. 13(3); Alta. 18; N.B. D-1; Sask. 12. "The reprehensible thing about the solicitor's conduct is
his indefensible ignoring of the communications of the Law Society ...", per Walsh, J. in In re X., a Solicitor
(1920), 16 Alta. L.R. 542 at 543.
4. Cf. IBA D-6.
5. Cf. ABA ECs 1-4, 2-25, 6-2, 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, 8-9, 9-6.
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