Jeremy Diamond, the high profile personal injury lawyer and face of Diamond & Diamond law firm, is appealing a decision by Ontario’s legal regulator to reprimand him for engaging in professional misconduct.

Late last month, the Law Society Tribunal reprimanded Diamond and ordered him to pay $25,000 in costs for failing to co-operate fully with an investigation into his financial books.

Diamond’s notice of appeal, filed Friday, called the tribunal’s decision “unreasonable.” It also said that the tribunal “erred in its approach to the meaning of co-operation in that it failed to recognize that the appellant was acting in an honest, and open, and helpful manner in his dealings with the law society.”

The tribunal decision flows from an investigation by the Law Society of Upper Canada into Diamond that began in October 2016. Law society investigators were looking into a number of allegations, including that Diamond failed to adequately inform clients about referral fees and engaged in improper/misleading advertising, according to documents filed as part of Diamond’s disciplinary hearing this past summer.

In September, the tribunal reprimanded Diamond for engaging in professional misconduct during the course of the investigation. In his decision, tribunal adjudicator Raj Anand noted that Diamond “failed to co-operate” with law society investigators and that it took five formal requests over several months to get him to hand over financial documents.

A spokesperson for the law society told the Star the lawyer remains under investigation despite the appeal.

Diamond’s lawyer, Brian Greenspan, told the Star this week that adjudicator Anand made “numerous errors” when it came to the laws surrounding whether Diamond failed to co-operate with investigators and that “what occurred here does not amount to any professional misconduct.”

“Mr. Diamond has always co-operated with the law society fully in any inquiries they have made and will continue fully in any inquiries made by the law society,” he said. “He has always had full, frank disclosure of any questions they’ve ever asked.”

In December 2016, a Star investigation revealed that Diamond’s firm had for many years been attracting thousands of would-be clients and then referring them out to other lawyers for sometimes hefty fees. Former clients the Star spoke to said they were often unaware they had been referred out, or that a fee had been paid. Diamond & Diamond has told the Star it has a growing roster of in-house lawyers to handle cases.

Diamond’s appeal comes about a month after the tribunal decision was handed down — and about three months after Diamond’s lawyers at the hearing, Robert Centa and Kris Borg-Olivier, argued before the tribunal that their client didn’t try to hide anything during the investigation. They said Diamond didn’t fully understand what the law society was asking for until April, about six months after requests were first made.

Once he understood, his lawyers argued at the hearing, Diamond complied and turned over the requested information and documents.

In the appeal, Greenspan lists nine reasons why the tribunal’s decision should be overturned. One is that the tribunal failed to consider that all requests to Diamond for documentation went through his lawyers, who “repeatedly and consistently emphasized” Diamond’s willingness to co-operate.

Another reason, the appeal states, is that the tribunal either failed to consider or ignored how Diamond’s lawyers “did not understand the law society’s request for documentation” and sought clarification.

The appeal also said that the tribunal failed to consider that while they were providing responses to the law society, Diamond’s lawyers asked, in one case, how it was best to provide the information, but were never given an answer.

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The appeal also states that the tribunal failed to consider whether Diamond acted in “good faith.”

Correction – October 23, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version to update an incorrect photo caption. The photo caption mistakenly said Jeremy Diamond is appealing a decision by the Law Society Tribunal that he failed to adequately inform clients about referral fees and engaged in improper/misleading advertising. In fact, as stated correctly in the article, Diamond is appealing a decision by the legal regulator to reprimand him for engaging in professional misconduct.