NS Legal Intel

The Courts of Nova Scotia notes that daily court dockets are generally public records of court activity, but dockets tied to Wellness Court programs (including Mental Health Court and Domestic Violence Court) and Supreme Court Family Division are not publicly distributed, while Youth Court dockets are posted at courthouses with required name redactions or initials.

Client trust funds and the firm's operating funds must never commingle, even temporarily, even with the intent to "fix it later." Bar audits look for two things first: (1) any check or transfer that touches both accounts, (2) negative balances on any specific client's ledger. Both are presumptive misappropriation regardless of intent.

A consistently followed retention policy provides a defense against spoliation claims when documents are destroyed in the ordinary course before litigation was anticipated. Without a policy, every routine deletion looks like targeted destruction in hindsight.

Most non-compliance findings stem from three avoidable mistakes: claiming credit for the wrong reporting period, missing the ethics-credit minimum, and failing to retain proof of attendance for the audit lookback window (typically 5 years). State bar audits are random but increasing in frequency.