No stranger to discipline, Winnipeg lawyer’s actions under scrutiny

A longtime Winnipeg lawyer with a disciplinary history has withdrawn from practising law while the provincial regulator looks into her conduct.

Gisele Champagne withdrew from law practice effective July 8, says a notice from the Law Society of Manitoba’s chief executive officer, Leah Kosokowsky.

The withdrawal means she is not to conduct any legal work in Manitoba, pending law society investigations.

The notice does not include any details of what the law society is probing.

A spokeswoman for the law society, Deirdre O’Reilly, said the regulator cannot share any further information on the matter at this point.

“All complaints matters regarding the conduct of lawyers are confidential unless and until they become the subject of charges of professional misconduct, conduct unbecoming of a lawyer or incompetence,” said O’Reilly.

Champagne declined comment on Wednesday.

The law society had already placed restrictions on her law practice earlier this year.

Effective May 15, she was not permitted to practise law in the province unless she was working under the supervision of another lawyer approved by the law society. She was also only to practise family law.

Champagne, who was called to the bar in 1992, has been disciplined by the law society several times in the past.

Most recently, in 2020, she admitted to professional misconduct for incidents reported in 2019 and 2020.

In the incident reported in 2019, Champagne made changes to a joint document that a Crown attorney had already signed, without her consent, and filed it in court, in a sentence appeal for a client of hers who had pleaded guilty to serious criminal charges. At issue was the trial judge not taking into account the man’s pre-trial custody at sentencing.

The Crown later discovered the legal brief had been altered and the court did not accept the improperly revised document. The Crown ultimately prepared a final revised document that Champagne signed and the joint appeal was granted.

In the 2020 citation, she admitted to breaching legal accounting rules in how she used general and trust accounts in 2014 and 2015. The breach did not result in any actual losses to her client.

On a joint recommendation, she was fined $4,000 and ordered to pay $4,000 in court costs.

The law society disciplinary panel said in a written decision it would have gone for a harsher punishment, if not for the joint recommendation, and warned that Champagne should expect punishment more severe than a fine if she ever faces discipline again.

In 2018, Champagne pleaded guilty to professional misconduct, after taking instructions from a developmentally delayed youth to plead guilty to a robbery, with no input from the boy’s guardian.

Champagne agreed to no longer represent youth clients, and was ordered to pay $4,000 in fines and court costs.

In a similar case from 2012, Champagne pleaded guilty to failing to serve her client in a diligent and efficient manner, after taking a cognitively delayed youth’s instructions to agree to an adult sentence without ensuring he knew the consequences of his decision or his options.

She was reprimanded and ordered to practise under supervision for 18 months.

In 2001, Champagne pleaded guilty to failing to act with integrity after admitting to providing false information on her application as a student in the bar admission program. She was fined and ordered to pay court costs totalling $2,000.

That same year, she pleaded guilty to failing to serve her client after approving a witness whose testimony she knew would be damaging to her client’s case. The law society reprimanded Champagne and ordered her to practise under supervision for one year.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca