Law360 Canada ( May 9, 2022, 9:21 AM EDT) -- Appeal by Merchant from a decision of the Law Society of Saskatchewan Hearing Committee finding him guilty of conduct unbecoming of a lawyer. Merchant obtained and acted upon a Direction to Pay signed by JS, a residential school survivor whom Merchant had represented. The Direction to Pay provided that outstanding accounts owed by JS and her son to the Merchant Law Group (MLG), which were unrelated to the settlement of JS’s residential school claim, would be paid from funds received by her from the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) funds. Those funds had been paid to MLG in trust for her. The Hearing Committee found that Merchant intentionally breached Article 18.01 of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), which provided that no amount payable to a residential school survivor could be assigned, and that any such assignment was null and void. Merchant took the position that the Hearing Committee erred as the evidence established that he had an honest but mistaken belief that a direction to pay was not the same as an assignment, he had acted in a transparent manner, he had previously sought advice from the Ethics Committee of the Law Society with respect to the direction to pay issue, and he had sought directions from the Court....