Leonard Hil Marriott is once again in hot water with the Law Society of BC.
The legal regulator has now accused the former Vernon lawyer of improperly transferring half of his client’s property to himself, and misappropriating more than $116,000 of the client’s money.
The accusations follow a string of professional misconduct findings against Marriott in recent years, which led to the Law Society banning him from practicing law for 10 years, and taking over his practice when he failed to prove that he’d in fact adhered to the ban.
According to a recently published citatation from the Law Society dated Oct. 6, Marriott was acting as a lawyer for an unnamed client in July 2021 when he prepared documents gifting himself 50 per cent interest in the client’s property. He then registered a freehold transfer in the Land Title Office in December of that year and made himself and the client the joint owners of the property.
The Law Society said this constituted professional misconduct.
The citation then alleges that in December 2021 and January 2022, while acting for the same client in a wills and estate matter, Marriott misappropriated or improperly withdrew some or all of $116,886.16 of the client’s funds and transferred those funds into the account of a numbered company he owned and controlled.
“Neither you nor the company were entitled to the funds,” the Society said.
In December 2021, Marriott secured an alleged loan from the client to his company totalling just shy of $82,000 with a five per cent interest rate. He then secured another such loan of $35,000 with the same interest rate, according to the citation. This, again, was deemed professional misconduct.
The citation says in March 2022, Marriott named himself the beneficiary of 75 per cent of the client’s residual estate while preparing a will for the client, breaking rules of B.C.’s code of professional conduct for lawyers in the process.
The allegations have not yet been tested, but if they are established, they will add to a heavily blemished record that’s already seen Marriott lose the right to practice the law for the next decade.
In February, the Law Society found that Marriott had made a “litany of mistakes” in a fairly straightforward property transfer in which he ended up accidentally severing a client’s joint tenancy after her husband had passed away. That decision also found that he’d knowingly filed false information to the courts.
He was found to have committed professional misconduct and was suspended from his law practice for 10 years earlier this year. The B.C. Supreme Court ended up ordering Marriott to hand over his North Valley Law practice to the Law Society because he had not proven that he’d stopped practicing law, despite several requests, the society said at the time.
Marriott announced his retirement from law around the time he received his suspension.
Before that, in December 2024, the Law Society ordered Marriott to pay back $71,000 to a client after he’d improperly withdrawn the funds and mishandled the execution of a will.
Despite being admitted as a member of the Law Society more than 30 years ago, in February 1992, Marriott had accumulated relatively little experience as a practicing lawyer. In all, he’d only practiced law for about three years, with a gap of about 23 years from when he was first qualified to practice, according to a previous Law Society decision. His North Valley Law practice had locations in Vernon, Armstrong and Enderby.
According to a court filing, Marriott owed the Canada Revenue Agency just over $181,500 as of May 8, 2024, with interest accruing daily.
Marriott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.