Must Ontario Lawyers Verify Clients in Person for Compliance in 2024?

LawyerDoneDeal Corp. (LDD) actively participated in Ontario's foremost legal conferences this autumn. Maurizio Romanin, the President and CEO of LDD, took the stage at the Ontario Bar Association's (OBA) annual conference in the picturesque Muskoka region to share his insights on FINTRAC, Fraud, and Client Authentication. One of the main talking points of these events and conferences was verifying client IDs.

Changes in Client Identification

You may recall that early in the pandemic, the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) temporarily allowed real estate lawyers to virtually identify clients with government-issued ID and complete their mortgage financial paperwork. That is, they met homebuying-clients online and verified their identity by video.

It was a band-aid emergency-procedure we could all temporarily live with. Then, as society reopened in 2022, LSO announced that this stopgap measure would end on January 1, 2024.

Today, like almost everybody, many clients and lawyers are comfortable meeting and working exclusively online.

You can virtually verify clients today, using approved services.

The requirements for virtual verification of identity with authentication begin January 1, 2024. This means those who choose to verify the identity of an individual using video conferencing technology or other forms of virtual communication will be required to authenticate the government-issued photo identification document.

How you choose to conduct business with your client is your call. But many modern clients - and many lawyers - would rather forego the whole in-person process. If you want, you can circumvent the in-person meeting. The LSO now approves several ways to verify identity virtually.

Here’s a directory of recognized services. We recommend LDD’s recently released ClientConnect which is safe, secure, simple, and designed to ensure that legal professionals adhere to the LSO’s requirements.