[Andrew Kavchak]

Hi Folks,

This is a really awful story. Not only is our community continuously facing obstacles from the healthcare system, politicians, school boards, bureaucrats, etc….but as a means of last resort, and only as a last resort, families have been forced to resort to legal action.

You'd think that by hiring a lawyer you would be advancing your case, and not ruining it. Well, I remember years ago a friend of mine with an autistic child told me that she was part of a group of parents who were starting a major lawsuit that was seeking millions in damages in relation to the lack of services for autistic kids or something like that. Their lawyer? Someone called Jonathan Strug.

Well, I remember asking her if the Statement of Claim was filed. Yes it was, she said. Was the Statement of Defence filed? I was curious to know what the government's counter-arguments were. Not sure, she said. Jonathan was taking care of it though, she added.

Well, well…The story below is just unbelievable. You have to read it to believe it. Now some people are diverting their precious time, energy and resources to fighting a lawsuit against the former lawyer and his former firm, rather than the government/school boards, etc… And how does that help the kids who have needed treatment urgently for years? The government must be laughing. I have not communicated with my friend in a long, long time. But the last time I heard she was on sick leave from her employment. This is a weird planet. It really is.
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Toronto Sun,
Wed, May 7, 2008.

Young lawyer's meltdown

Jonathan Strug disbarred over series of phantom legal cases with families of schoolchildren

By MOIRA MACDONALD

Jonathan Wade Strug was a promising young lawyer with one high profile case and one landmark lawsuit under his belt within three years of being called to the bar in 2002.

Yesterday his career came to a crashing, mystifying finish as the Law Society of Upper Canada disbarred the 35 year old for a series of phantom legal cases he duped families of schoolchildren into believing he was pursuing for them.

Readers might best remember Strug for his work as one of the lawyers who successfully represented Marc Hall, the gay Durham Catholic school board student who wanted to bring a male date to his prom in the spring of 2002.

But Strug really proved his mettle when, first as an articling student, and then as a junior lawyer, he worked on the landmark Wynberg case with the well-reputed law firm Eberts, Symes, Street and Corbett (now Eberts, Symes, Street, Pinto and Jull).

The case involved families of autistic children who say the Ontario government had violated their children's rights by denying them a special — and costly — therapy called Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) once their children turned six. The families won in March 2005. But the McGuinty Liberal government successfully appealed the ruling in July 2006, saving itself millions of dollars in IBI costs.

Strug gained respect from special needs parents for his work, knowledge and sensitivity. As a result, other parents approached Strug for help with their own school board battles.

But between Wynberg Part I and II, the young lawyer melted down — unbeknownst to his firm, it says — perpetrating a massive deception on the non-Wynberg families. He left the Eberts firm in October 2005, in the midst of helping to prepare the fight against Wynberg Part II.

Through his lawyer William Trudell, Strug, now a warehouse worker, admitted his guilt and remorse yesterday in eight separate phantom cases. He was not in the Law Society hearing room, counselled by Trudell to stay away because of his fragile mental state.

But in the words of the Law Society's panel chair, Brad Wright, Strug "repeatedly, deliberately misled, even lied to many clients, other lawyers, and the senior partner in his own firm."

What is mystifying however, is why Strug put so much time and energy into lying. It wasn't like he was doing nothing. He continued to work overtime, preparing well-done statements of claim, showing children's families fake court orders in their favour, giving them false court dates, telling them he'd won them money awards, even encouraging them to publicize their cases with the media — yet no paper had been filed. The cases did not exist.

Strug told Neil and Natasha Cuddy, parents of a boy whom they believed had been inappropriately labelled as learning disabled, he had filed a judicial review application for them against Ontario's privacy commissioner regarding access to documents. But when I called the courts in late September 2005 to verify the filing, I was told it did not exist. It was that call that led to the revelation Strug had lied to the Cuddys about what he was doing — and the first complaint Strug was not all he seemed.

The Cuddys — not part of yesterday's Law Society action — are now suing Strug, along with his former firm. Other families say they are also suing Strug and the Eberts firm.

The question is, why did he do it? The best Strug's lawyer can come up with is his client was overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, exhausted, severely depressed and lost his judgment.

But for the devastated families, there are still many questions.

These people not only saw their trust trampled by school boards, and then the lawyer who was supposed to help them, but also watched their children permanently lose out on educational opportunities because a lying lawyer cost them valuable battle time.

"I could imagine doing it to one person. [But] autism is so politically charged," says Carolyn Borgstadt cryptically. Borgstadt is the mother of an autistic boy and was nearly sued for slander after Strug recommended she go to the media about her school board's non-compliance with court orders, when in fact Strug had never got the orders in the first place.

"It was crushing, absolutely crushing."