Law society revokes Garth Drabinsky's licence over fraud convictions

TORONTO - Ontario's law society has revoked disgraced theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky's licence to practice law.

He and business partner Myron Gottlieb served several years in prison for a fraud that ultimately resulted in the demise of now-defunct Livent Inc. — the company behind such hits as "Phantom of the Opera" and "Ragtime."

Drabinsky, who was called to the bar in 1975, admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada that his conduct was unbecoming of a licensee.

He had already agreed not to practise law since his fraud convictions, but argued that his self-imposed suspension and restrictions on his practice should suffice as punishment.

Drabinsky told the law society that his law licence was one of the few assets he had left that he could use to "climb out of the abyss" of the past 15 years, referring to when the company went bankrupt.

But the law society ordered that his serious criminal offences mandated the penalty of revocation.