Victim of intimate partner assault by B.C. lawyer calls 3-month suspension a 'slap on the wrist'
CBC
A West Vancouver lawyer who admitted to beating up his then-girlfriend while also representing her in divorce proceedings has been suspended from practice for three months.
Michael Murph Ranspot will also have to pay $12,087 in costs to the Law Society of B.C. for professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming a lawyer, according to a disciplinary decision issued on March 18.
But for Ranspot's ex-girlfriend, who has waited more than six years for Ranspot to be sanctioned, the decision comes as a major disappointment. CBC has agreed not to name her, but she is referred to by the initials CC in law society proceedings.
She had argued for an 18-month suspension, and described the much shorter disciplinary period as a "slap on the wrist," pointing out that Ranspot has been disciplined by the law society twice before.
"These penalties are not serious enough to cause a hindrance or force change," CC said.
"These insignificant inconveniences are not effective at impacting … these 'officers of the court,' people who are the most educated on the laws of this country — the same people the public expects to know right from wrong."
Ranspot beat her up inside her home on Dec. 31, 2015, causing injuries serious enough to send CC to the hospital. The law society has described the nature of the assault as "severe."
He pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in November 2016 and was later given a 16-month conditional discharge, meaning he served a term of probation before the conviction was removed from his criminal record.
In the law society's decision, a disciplinary hearing panel acknowledged that Ranspot's assault on CC has caused lasting trauma.
"It is difficult to imagine conduct more grave than when a lawyer assaults a vulnerable client who is also their intimate partner," the decision says.
But the panel went on to say that the maximum sanction in recent cases of intimate partner violence by lawyers was a three-month suspension.
CC filed her original complaint against Ranspot with the law society shortly after the assault, but the disciplinary process has been held up by procedural issues. A hearing panel upheld the allegations in 2019, but that decision was set aside in 2020 after Ranspot argued his lawyer hadn't informed him about the hearing.
A second hearing was held last year. A law society hearing panel once again found that Ranspot had committed conduct unbecoming a lawyer for the assault, and professional misconduct for his conflict of interest in representing CC and loaning her money without making sure she had independent legal advice.
CC described the delays as painful.
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