Manitoba lawyer disbarred for ‘fraudulent billing scheme’

The scales of justice and a judge's gavel are pictured. (File)

The Law Society of Manitoba has disbarred a lawyer after the society found him guilty on five counts of professional misconduct.

In a written decision on Feb. 3, a panel at the society said Rishi Ganesh Bharath took on clients from Legal Aid Manitoba, provided limited help, lied to clients, lied to Legal Aid Manitoba, and then charged legal aid the full allowable amount.

“The Panel finds that over the course of six matters, the Member created a fraudulent billing scheme,” the written decision reads.

The six incidents happened between 2022 and 2023 and evidence in the decision showed that Bharath took on clients and then would end the certificate a short time later, claiming he had lost contact with the client.

In one of the incidents, Bharath took a client on Aug. 18, 2022, and then contacted Legal Aid Manitoba on Sept. 17, 2022, saying he had lost contact with the client and was closing the matter.

Both legal aid and the Law Society of Manitoba investigated. During the investigation, Bharath said he sent the client a letter on Aug. 25, and it went unanswered. Legal Aid Manitoba was charged for 90 minutes for preparing the letter.

However, the client said they never received a letter.

When told the client had never received the letter, Bharath said the client was a liar, aggressive, tampered with emails, and had “an extensive criminal record.”

“There was no criminal record in the client file materials,” the decision reads.

“The Society does not believe that the Member sent the August 25th letter to Client A and found that the letter was fabricated in an attempt to mislead the Society during its investigation.”

The society said Bharath participated in the investigation at the start, “but at a critical point, the Member became incommunicative.”

“The Member had misled the Society in its investigation, and further had ceased to respond to the Society’s investigator. Counsel submitted that the Member is ungovernable.”

On top of being found guilty on five counts of professional misconduct and being disbarred, the panel ordered Bharath to pay $9,200. He did not show up to the disciplinary hearing.

In the decision, it’s noted Bharath withdrew from active practice on Feb. 28, 2024, and is now considered non-practising.