A suspended Richmond lawyer is being investigated for allegedly advertising her services on a Chinese-language social media platform.
Hong Guo, who was banned in March from practicing for a year amid a catalogue of professional misconducts, appears to be soliciting for business on WeChat.
The Richmond News was made aware this week of ads on the site which have her photo and company name on them, with the translation reading “immigration, notary, wills and companies.”
The Law Society of British Columbia confirmed to News on Thursday that it is looking into Guo’s potential breach.
Suspended lawyers are legally prohibited from practicing law in B.C. during their suspension, and they are forbidden from indicating or implying that they are qualified or entitled to practice law.
Guidelines from the Law Society state that suspended lawyers should cease marketing and either remove online presence indicating they are a practising lawyer or include a “prominent notice of suspension” on their online pages.
Guo’s law firm operates out of an office on No. 3 Road and she is a former legal specialist for the government of the People’s Republic of China.
Her suspension began on March 8 earlier this year after the Law Society stopped short of disbarring her.
Guo is still facing more than two dozen Law Society investigations and three out of nine citations, and was found to have committed professional misconduct in various instances.
Examples include failing to avoid conflicts of interest, failing to comply with trust accounting rules, misappropriating from a trust account and being “evasive and untruthful” during a Law Society investigation.
