Lawyer disbarred over Legal Aid billing
A Hamilton lawyer has been disbarred after being found guilty of professional misconduct for overbilling and forging documents to Legal Aid Ontario.
Omar Shabbir Khan had his licence to practise law revoked and was ordered to pay $20,000 over four years in a decision released Friday by the Law Society Tribunal. He was found guilty of professional misconduct by the tribunal in March.
Khan previously pleaded guilty to uttering 41 forged invoices valued at about $12,000. In this criminal case he was given a conditional discharge, ordered to pay $16,000 in restitution, three years’ probation and 200 hours of community service.
The case arose after a 2013 audit by Legal Aid that examined 90 accounts Khan had submitted since 2009 and found $18,000 in billing irregularities, according to a Law Society Tribunal document giving reasons for finding Khan guilty.
Khan told the tribunal that he had an undiagnosed mental illness that impacted his behaviour, and his actions were “not a true reflection of his character.” However, the tribunal said this argument lacked credibility.
He had not been practising since the Law Society Tribunal issued an interlocutory suspension in January 2016 amid the investigation.
Khan was called to the Ontario Bar in 2000 and worked largely as an immigration lawyer in Hamilton, representing many refugee applicants, until becoming a staff lawyer for Legal Aid Ontario in 2013.
Khan told the tribunal that he hated doing paperwork and had a very busy practice. He also went through several “personal setbacks” including a friend being involved in a serious car crash, his wife also being in a car crash, and his son suffering a significant medical issue. He developed diabetes.
He was “burned out” and decided to take the job with Legal Aid Ontario, where he expected to be able to spend more time at home in Hamilton, the tribunal heard. But this never happened and he found himself commuting daily to Toronto.
In August 2013, just five months into the staff job, he learned Legal Aid was undertaking a comprehensive audit of files he had worked on from 2009 to 2012.
He had failed to check the Legal Aid Ontario portal and missed a message and the deadline to answer audit questions. He became “freaked out” trying to find the files and information that Legal Aid was requesting and, in a panic, said he made up invoices his previous assistant couldn’t find.
He admitted that he “reverse engineered” invoices by altering existing invoices from other vendors.
The Law Society also showed that Khan overbilled Legal Aid on 25 different days.
Neither Khan nor his lawyers could immediately be reached for comment.