Accused lawyer has bundle of legal trouble

It’s a very serious matter, of course, a prominent Canadian lawyer has been criminally charged with forging court documents and signatures and attempting to obstruct justice.

And thus, on Friday, did a panel of the Law Society of Ontario temporarily suspend the lawyer’s licence to practise.

But holy moly, the alleged motivation behind the seven charges that James Cooper Morton now faces does lend itself to bad jokes.

In essence, Morton is alleged to have faked a certificate of divorce from his Justice of the Peace wife Rhonda Shousterman so that he could marry his law clerk, Jennifer Packwood.

As colleague Sam Pazzano of the Toronto Sun — he broke the story — noted wryly a few days ago, sheesh, with two wives, two mothers-in-law, “The punishment is the crime.”

Morton allegedly had the fake papers filed in April at the courthouse in Newmarket, north of Toronto, where Shousterman sits as a JP.

Unsurprisingly, a clerk there noticed some irregularities in the documents, did a little digging and learned that the file number on the divorce order wasn’t real, that there was no record of any such divorce action and that neither of the two judges whose names appeared on the order had presided over such a case.

She called the police. But when a York Regional Police detective contacted Morton on May 9, he said he couldn’t make time for an interview. After all, though he didn’t tell the detective this, he had a wedding coming up.

He and Packwood married in Niagara on May 12.

In fact, as the panel learned Friday, York Regional Police have since consulted the Centre for Forensic Sciences, where an expert concluded that the divorce certificate was forged, a handwriting analyst determined that the handwriting of the clerk whose name is on the document is not her actual handwriting, and another expert found that the seal of the Superior Court of Justice on the document was added afterwards by a laser colour printer.

The 58-year-old Morton, a former president of the Ontario Bar Association and of the federal Liberal riding association in Thornhill, wasn’t present at the Law Society hearing Friday but consented to the temporary lifting of his Ontario law licence through his lawyer, Stephen Bernstein.

The suspension takes effect next Tuesday, so that Morton can represent a young offender in a plea in court. The young person wouldn’t have time to get another lawyer, the panel heard, and Morton has promised to tell the client about his problems so that he may give his informed consent. After that, Morton has promised, he won’t provide services to anyone else pending the resolution of his various charges.

After Pazzano wrote about Morton’s difficulties, the story was picked up by other news organizations, including in Nunavut, where Morton also has a law practice.

The Law Society of Nunavut is now reviewing Morton’s practice there, and in Ontario, three former clients have filed civil suits against him.

As well, Law Society of Ontario investigator Brian Borg said in a supplementary affidavit filed with the panel Friday, Susan Heakes, who represented the Law Society at the hearing, has been contacted by a Toronto lawyer, Steven Troster, about a client of his.

Morton was retained by this client, whose first language isn’t English, in June.

By then, Morton had not only married Packwood, but had also been contacted by the York Regional Police detective.

Yet according to Troster, he disclosed none of this to the client, who “paid a substantial retainer.”

As well, Troster said, Morton most recently met this man on Aug. 1 to set new dates for the case.

The next day, the client learned about Morton’s situation in the press.

Troster said his client has “now been placed in an extremely vulnerable position.” Morton has allegedly “declined to process a return of funds” and the client now has to retain and instruct a new lawyer in order to defend his business in court.

When Borg interviewed Morton in July, in the presence of his lawyer, he “canvassed the possibility that mental health issues might explain this apparently outof-character behaviour,” the investigator wrote in his first affidavit.

But Morton told him “that although he has been prescribed antidepressants, his ‘mental frame of mind’ has not interfered in his ability to practise.

“He indicated that he is ‘perfectly capable’ and added, ‘Listen, there’s nothing tremendously wrong with me.’

“He stated, ‘I have a strong and supportive spouse, I’ll call her that…’ ”

Er, two of them, actually. Morton’s next appearance on the criminal charges is Sept. 12.

WITH 2 WIVES, 2 MOTHERSIN-LAW, THE PUNISHMENT IS THE CRIME.