Former Knowledge House CEO Dan Potter has dropped his appeal of a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling ordering a Halifax law firm to turn over documents to the provincial body that licenses lawyers.
This means the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society can finally access two files it subpoenaed last year from Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales in its investigation of Halifax lawyer Blois Colpitts.
Mr. Colpitts was a lawyer with Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales when he acted as lawyer for Knowledge House, a Halifax e-learning company that went under in 2001, according to court documents.
"It means that the original order of Justice (Ted) Scanlon stands, and the information that we wanted, that had been subject to our subpoenas, will be provided to us," Darrel Pink, executive director of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society, said Wednesday.
The case, involving arguments of solicitor-client privilege, had gained the attention of law societies across the country.
It was scheduled to be heard Wednesday in the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.
Mr. Potter filed a notice with the appeal court May 29 that he was dropping the case.
Last year, Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales refused to hand over the subpoenaed documents, arguing in Nova Scotia Supreme Court that solicitor-client privilege prevented it from releasing them.
But the society countered that it needed access to the information to carry out its regulatory duties....
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