Risk Management & Claims Prevention
Spear Phishing Campaigns
You may think that phishing attempts are easy to spot and you couldn’t be fooled, but not all phishing attempts are created equal. Meet the spear phishing campaign. Spear phishing occurs when fraudsters target a specific person, organization, or group using information they have gathered in advance. Unlike generic phishing attempts, these scams are personalized… Read More »
Categories: Fraud PreventionReal Fakes: What To Do If You’ve Been Impersonated
LAWPRO has received several reports of fraudsters impersonating lawyers. Fraudsters will use a lawyer’s identity to deceive the public, clients and prospective clients, other lawyers, or third parties into sending money, such as a retainer fee or transaction-related funds. In other cases, the impersonator is using the lawyer’s identity to engage in the unauthorized practice… Read More »
Categories: Fraud PreventionNew Fraud Scheme: Insurance Settlement Funds
A new fraud scheme involving insurance settlement funds has a familiar end: the cheque is no good. The scheme commences when fraudster approaches a lawyer, usually with no previous relationship, asking the lawyer to review settlement documents, provide ILA, and receive the settlement funds into the lawyer’s trust account. To make the fraud attempt more… Read More »
Categories: Fraud PreventionNew Cybersecurity Threat from AI Searches: The Rise of Phantom Squatting
AI doesn’t just hallucinate case law, it hallucinates website domains too. In a new and growing form of digital attack, hackers use AI agents to query search engines to get the most common hallucinated sites. A bad actor then registers the hallucinated domain and creates a convincing website at that address. The next time that… Read More »
Categories: Fraud Prevention, TechnologyWhen banking credit is good and bad: how to avoid transaction reversals and shortfalls
Did you know that Payments Canada statistics indicate that 99% of all deposits in a bank account are credits and not good funds? The Canadian banking system works on trust and therefore provides an immediate credit that reflects the value of any funds being transferred or deposited. However, that credit needs to be processed and… Read More »
Categories: Fraud PreventionVerify the withdrawals from your accounts
LAWPRO has received claims from lawyers who fell victim to fraudsters diverting and depositing cheques meant for their clients. In two cases to date, lawyers issued cheques to their clients as part of their professional services. However, in both cases, an identical amount was withdrawn from the lawyer’s trust account but payable to a third… Read More »
Categories: Fraud PreventionWhen ILA isn’t
This is a story of what seemed like a simple independent legal advice (ILA) matter that turned out to be more complicated than it looked. The claim story A lender sought ILA about a loan that he wanted to advance to a friend. The friend intended to use the money to purchase additional shares in… Read More »
Categories: Risk Management StrategiesEstates and Limitation Periods – Recent case decision
Navigating limitation periods is a critical aspect of legal practice in Ontario and lawyers are often faced with the challenge of determining which legislation applies to their clients’ cases. In a recent case, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the two-year limitation period under the Trustee Act applied to the respondent’s equitable trust claim… Read More »
Categories: Limitations Claims, Wills & Estates