Paule Seeger (Moore) A Kelowna lawyer has been suspended for at least 18 months for professional misconduct, including misappropriation of client funds. The Law Society of BC announced Friday that Paule Fiona Seeger (Moore) will be disbarred from practicing law until at least March 1, 2024, when she will have to appear before a panel to demonstrate that her capacity is “not adversely affected by a health condition or substance use problem’. Seeger operated her own law practice in Kelowna from January 2014 to December 2019, focusing primarily on family law. Her misconduct came to light in 2018 when an accountant working for the firm filed a complaint with the Law Society, the province’s lawyer regulator. Seeger would later admit in the regulator’s court that she billed clients for legal work that was not performed, improperly withdrew trust funds when she was not entitled to them, resulting in trust deficiencies, and overbilled clients for work completed by a student columnist. She also mishandled blank, signed trust fund checks, handing 20 of them to her accountant before she went on vacation so they could be issued in her absence. Finally, she failed to notify the law society as required of a six-figure federal tax-related judgment against her. “In determining the disciplinary action, the hearing panel considered the range of sanctions imposed in recent disciplinary cases in which medical evidence indicated that a lawyer’s mental health or substance use problems were a factor in the misconduct,” Law said. Society of BC in a news release. “The panel found that the amount of customer money that had been misused or improperly withdrawn was serious, but considered Seeger’s admission of misconduct and the corrective measures it took to address the contributing factors.” No total number of embezzled funds was provided, but individual violations range from less than $200 to nearly $14,000. After the suspension is completed and after he convinces the board to be reinstated, Seeger will be barred from supervising articulated students or having any signing authority over a trust account. He should also practice under a supervision agreement within a framework approved by the Law Society.
