ARCTIC OBITER

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14 | <strong>ARCTIC</strong> <strong>OBITER</strong> TRUST MONEY The Well-Kept Secrets of the Law Foundation by Karen Lajoie, Director, NWT Law Foundation The Law Foundation was created 30 years ago pursuant to Part VII of the Legal Profession Act to encourage research and initiatives that enhance access to justice and the public’s understanding of our legal system, including law reform research, maintaining law libraries, contributing to legal education, and work on PLEI initiatives. The Foundation achieves these goals largely through financial contributions to outside organizations. Since 1982, the Foundation has awarded grants totaling $2,769,107 to hundreds of worthy recipients who have made a real difference in the North. It has also awarded scholarships totaling $212,000 to nearly four dozen Northerners attending law school, many of whom have returned to practice North of 60. I am fortunate to say that I am one of those scholarship recipients, and I can tell you first-hand what a d i f f e r e n c e r e c e i v i n g scholarship money made during my legal education, so it is a particular honour for me to now be a twoterm Director of the Foundation, participating in the decision-making process for a new generation of applicants. All of the money the Foundation administers comes from you; more specifically, from your trust accounts. By law, any interest generated by a trust account must be paid by your bank to the Foundation twice annually. With the current economic climate showing interest rates hovering around zero percent, it might not seem like much, but last year, just over $46,000 was paid to the Foundation in trust interest. That, coupled with interest generated on Foundation investments, allowed us to make annual grants in the $130,000 range, and award thousands of dollars in scholarships. In 2010-11, the Foundation awarded grants in five areas: $10,000 to the Law Society of the NWT to assist in defraying registration fees for NWT students doing their bar admissions courses; $13,624 to the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) to continue building the virtual law library that makes access to court cases, legislation, and tribunal decisions available online, free of charge, to the public; $70,000 to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to assist with a Community Justice Initiatives Program serving t h r e e N o r t h S l a v e communities. The money is used for diversion and restorative justice programs, family violence workshops, drug/alcohol support programs, and a host of alternative approaches to court.
MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 15 Choosing the Right Bank for Your Trust Accounts If you’re in private practice and do more than legal aid work, you’ve got a trust account. Any interest that the account generates is to be paid, by law, to the NWT Law Foundation semiannually under the Legal Profession Act, s.57(2). Not all trust accounts are equal, however, so it bears taking a few minutes to assess what your bank is doing for you, and whether or not you could be doing a better job generating interest on those trust monies. It is the lawyer’s obligation to instruct their bank to remit any interest earned on the trust monies to the Law Foundation every six months. Every year during the audit process, we discover a few lawyers who have been receiving the interest back into the trust account, which is verboten under the Act. Please review your bank statements carefully in order to be sure the interest is not going back into the account, and check with the bank periodically to make sure the interest is actually being paid to the Law Foundation. Currently, the five banks operating in the NWT have slightly different rates of return – ScotiaBank is offering prime less 3%, effectively zero interest. The other four – Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Royal Bank, and TD – are all offering 0.25%. When dealing with your bank, please insist on getting the highest return possible – low interest has a direct effect on the work the Law Foundation can support year to year. We rely on your diligence, so please take a couple of minutes to make sure your part of the system is working the way it is supposed to. Students and community groups thank you for your efforts. $50,000 to the GNWT to maintain the M.M. de Weerdt court library; and $5,000 to the Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, to assist and encourage Aboriginal people to enter the study of law. Also in 2011, the scholarship program was changed to provide financial incentives for Northern law students to return home post-graduation. Under these new rules, eligible applicants receive a non-repayable grant of $2,000 per year for each of three years while attending law school. If they return to the NWT to article, and continue to work post-call in the NWT for one year, the scholarship fund will assist them in the amount of $7,000 for each of those first two years, for an overall commitment of $20,000 per student. For the 2011/2012 academic year, four students have received scholarships. Please help us continue to fund these innovative projects and dedicated students. We rely on your trust account interest to make this possible.
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Page 3 and 4: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 3 PRESIDENT’S
Page 5 and 6: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 5 FRAUD PREVENTI
Page 7 and 8: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 7 NWT Deputy Jud
Page 9 and 10: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 9 The Law Week H
Page 11 and 12: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 11 New CBA/PBLO
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Page 21 and 22: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 21 CRIMINAL LAW
Page 23 and 24: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 23 S.C.C. UPDATE
Page 25 and 26: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 25 NWT LEGISLATI
Page 27 and 28: MARCH/APRIL 2012 | 27 RESOURCES The

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