International Law

Are You a Stupid Lawyer?

Well, James Morton is not a stupid lawyer, but he nearly fell for a neat twist on the advance fee scam.

As reported in Lawyers Weekly,

"Even seasoned lawyers can get caught up in a scam, as Toronto lawyer James Morton recently discovered.

Last month, the former president of the Ontario Bar Association and current head of the litigation group at Steinberg Morton Hope & Israel LLP received an e-mail from a man who claimed to be from the United Kingdom.

Identifying himself as "Harry Mark," the man asked Morton how much it would cost to retain him to collect a debt in Canada.

Morton told him his hourly rate was $350, but he was willing to lower it to $275 after the would-be client suggested collecting from the debtor wouldn't be difficult."

As soon as I read this, I immediately thought of the advance fee scam -a promise of a great fee for a simple job.

The usual advance fee works by dangling the promise of a big pay-off before the mark, which is available after a few routine bureaucratic hurdles/fees are jumped through.

The modern twist combines the advance fee with an altered or phony cheque: the fake cheque is sent by the scammer to the mark for fees, the mark takes his fees from the cheque and remits the rest back to the scammer.

In this neat twist, Morton was almost convinced that he had done a great job of negotiating a deal - money was to flow into his trust account, he would retain his fees and send the "settlement" to the scammer.

Very nice work! The scammer of course arranged to have a dummy company negotiate with Morton, and send Morton a fake cheque to Morton's trust account.

Through a quirk of fate the scam didn't work.

But do you know how to recognize that your trust account is at risk?

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on May 29, 2008 (boomark / email).