Dan Philip retires from Black Coalition
Dan Philip, who headed the Black Coalition of Quebec for 40 years, is retiring from the post to be replaced by Max Stanley Bazin, described as a lawyer. On looking him up, I found this article from 2015, which says Bazin no longer practices.
Update: Metro also notes Dan Philip’s retirement.
David732 22:00 on 2020-08-04 Permalink
That article strongly suggests that he no longer practices because he fell into some sort of situation (drugs, mental decline, booze, laziness, women, gambling, etc) that caused him to stop doing work for which he was paid, possibly because he was unable to do so. He was never reinstated after he was disbarred.
Not such a great record, here:
“Bazin, qui le représentait lors du procès « n’avait tout simplement pas pris connaissance du dossier, même de la façon la plus élémentaire », précise le document.
L’« incompétence » de l’avocat était telle qu’un juré a fait parvenir une note au juge pour questionner le déroulement du procès.
« L’incident n’est pas banal et représente sans doute une première au Québec, sinon au Canada », précise le jugement.
. . .
M. Bazin a été radié de l’ordre pour une période de deux ans en 2011.
Le conseil de discipline lui a notamment reproché de ne pas s’être présenté à la cour pour représenter certains de ses clients, entraînant l’émission d’un mandat d’arrestation contre l’un d’eux.
Il n’aurait pas non plus suivi les cours de perfectionnement que le Barreau lui avait imposés, « vu ses lacunes en droit ».
Kate 10:30 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
David∞, it wasn’t necessary to extract and spell out the details about Mr. Bazin’s troubles. I linked the story so anyone sufficiently interested could check it out.
In fact, I suspect the Black Coalition was Dan Philip, and that without him it may simply cease to exist in favour of more recent groupings.
Dan 10:41 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
David can never resist an opportunity to spout his unfounded, racist assumptions about a POC in the news.
Michael Black 10:49 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
I was surprised by a story a while back where the Coalition was mentioned but someone other than Dan Phillips was quoted. He definitely is the organization, though more concrete than something I mentioned recently. I did see him on TV more recently, and he is looking old, though that’s since ly because I haven’t seen him on the news recently.
It won’t be the same, and time will tell how things go.
david232 10:54 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
Yeah, Dan, I have it out for POCs in the news. Thanks for your contribution.
Back on planet earth, I have a professional interest in lawyers behaving badly. And “unfounded”!
You obviously don’t read French:
“Bazin, qui le représentait lors du procès « n’avait tout simplement pas pris connaissance du dossier, même de la façon la plus élémentaire », précise le document.
Translation: he didn’t even have the most elementary familiarity with the case, let alone familiarity sufficient to defend his client.
« L’incident n’est pas banal et représente sans doute une première au Québec, sinon au Canada », précise le jugement.
Translation: this is egregious, a first in Quebec, and possibly all of Canada.
M. Bazin a été radié de l’ordre pour une période de deux ans en 2011.
Translation: he was disbarred in 2011, for a period of two years (after which he could apply for readmission).
Le conseil de discipline lui a notamment reproché de ne pas s’être présenté à la cour pour représenter certains de ses clients, entraînant l’émission d’un mandat d’arrestation contre l’un d’eux.
Translation: In its order, the bar discipline board noted that in some cases, he didn’t even show up for court to represent his clients, which in at least one case led to an arrest warrant being issued against one of said clients.
Il n’aurait pas non plus suivi les cours de perfectionnement que le Barreau lui avait imposés, « vu ses lacunes en droit ».
Translation: he also didn’t even do the legal education units ordered by the bar to correct his lack of legal knowledge (ie. pertaining to the things that he kept doing wrong).
Then the guy didn’t bother trying to get his law license back.
A lot of racism there!
Kate 12:32 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
david∞– yes, we got the story, you don’t have to keep copying it to your comments.
Dan 12:33 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
Thanks so much David, but I am perfectly bilingual. Funny I didn’t see a translation of the part about drugs, booze and laziness – oh right, cause there was absolutely no mention of that and just your own unnecessary, and IMO, racist assumption.
David838 14:44 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
That’s the assumption about every lawyer when he/she goes off track. It’s drummed into you in law school, professional responsibility lectures, CLEs, etc. Literally, those things are the reason pretty much every otherwise normal attorney ends up going off the rails, white or black, 90% of cases in front to the bar court, that’s the reason.
Michael Black 15:51 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
But what relevance does this have to the organization? Leading it, you’ll have lawyers working for you, not in court handling the case yourself. Knowing the law is useful, it helped the Black Panthers, but not having a license isn’t that important.
Kate’s right, someone new leading the group is more likely to be a problem because they aren’t Dan Phillips than any problem in their past.
david25 18:04 on 2020-08-05 Permalink
It’s remarkable when a semi-well known civic organization hires a 1%er of attorneys – namely, the disbarred – to run the organization! Mazel tov and bon courage to them, but I think it’s perfectly worth commenting about.
And again, people can look up how people end up making the sorts of repeated violations that result in disbarment, and it’s not pretty. If it’s new behavior, there’s an underlying issue, that’s usually pretty dark.