News Release
June 16, 2020

A hearing panel of the Law Society has ordered that Victoria lawyer Crystal Irene Buchan be suspended for professional misconduct. The one month suspension commences on June 16, 2020.

In the course of representing her client in family proceedings in the Provincial Court, Buchan was found to have failed to sign and enter two court orders in a timely manner and to have failed to respond to numerous inquiries about the status of the two orders with reasonable promptness. The panel found her conduct to be a marked departure from the standard the Law Society expects of lawyers and that it constitutes professional misconduct.

In ordering the one month suspension, the panel considered the serious nature of the misconduct and Buchan’s professional record, which shows a pattern of poor client service and failure to respond to communications. The panel recognised her cooperation with the Law Society in that the parties reached a joint position on sanction, which was accepted by the hearing panel, and her acknowledgement of the misconduct as mitigating factors. The hearing panel also noted that Buchan served a 45-day suspension from May 1 to June 15, 2020 for similar misconduct on a different matter. 

Written reasons for the hearing panel’s decision are available here.

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For further information contact:

Vinnie Yuen
Communications Officer
604.697.5836
vyuen@lsbc.org