The Law Society of Ontario is attempting to suspend a Hamilton immigration lawyer-turned-tribunal adjudicator after a dozen people complained she took their money but never completed the work to help them stay in Canada.
“Based on complaints the law society has received against the respondent to date, there are reasonable grounds to believe that there is a significant risk of harm to members of the public and/or to the public interest in the administration of justice,” it said in its motion filed June 25, 2025 with the Law Society Tribunal.
It said it’s currently investigating claims she misled the federal government, misappropriated $10,500 in client funds and failed to serve 12 clients with active refugee claims.
CBC Hamilton previously reported on four families’ experiences with Victoria Bruyn since 2023. They all said Bruyn didn’t follow through on promises to help them navigate Canada’s complicated, high-stakes immigration system, leaving them in limbo or, in some cases, facing deportation.
For Oksana Hrabova and Oleg Lomanov from Ukraine, they paid Bruyn a retainer of nearly $3,000 last summer to help them with their permanent residency applications.
But in the months after they sent Bruyn all of the necessary documents, she “simply disappeared,” no longer responding to their emails, calls and texts, said Hrabova.
Bruyn never told them she was no longer practising law as of October 2024, as she’d been appointed as an adjudicator at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), said Hrabova. They found out months later through an online search and filed a complaint against Bruyn with the law society.
Bruyn told CBC Hamilton then that she had “evidence to show these allegations are unfounded” but said she thought it was not appropriate to speak about her clients’ cases.
9 law society investigations ongoing
The law society, which regulates lawyers and paralegals in Ontario, brought a motion on June 25 against Bruyn, who is still a licensed lawyer, to suspend her ability to practice law or restrict it while it continues to investigate her.
The case will be heard next week at the Law Society Tribunal. The allegations have not been tested through this dispute process.
Bruyn did not respond to CBC Hamilton’s request for comment. She’s on a leave of absence from the LTB, confirmed Tribunals Ontario, which did not comment on the law society’s motion.
The law society said it’s investigating Bruyn for allegations including that she may have:
- Abandoned her law practice.
- Failed to communicate and serve 12 clients who had active refugee claims.
- Misappropriated $10,500 in client funds.
- Misled the federal government’s Immigration and Refugee Board.
Bruyn hasn’t co-operated with nine law society investigations based on complaints received between March 2024 and last month, said the motion.
Along with individual clients, the law society said it received complaints from the refugee board that Bruyn “may have misled” it by filing false information without reviewing it first with her clients.
‘Good news for us,’ says former client
Until recently, she was on Legal Aid Ontario’s roster, meaning she accepted government money to represent low-income clients. The provincial agency has previously declined to comment on why or when the change happened.
But that’s how Sarah Arvanitis, an American citizen who lives in Hamilton, was connected with Bruyn. Leading up to a trip to the U.S. in 2023, she was under the impression Bruyn had filed a Canadian permanent residency application on her behalf, and she could cross freely between the two countries.
On the way back, she was stopped by Canadian border officials who said no application was ever submitted.
When she tried to get Bruyn to help her return to Canada, the lawyer couldn’t be reached, Arvanitis said. It wasn’t until three months later when Arvanitis was able to hire another lawyer that she was able to get back home.
The law society investigated Arvanitis’s complaint and closed the file after providing Bruyn with “regulatory guidance,” adding a note to her file and finding “there was insufficient evidence of professional misconduct to support further action.”
Her case doesn’t appear to be part of the law society’s motion against Bruyn, but Arvanitis told CBC Hamilton in an email this week, “it’s good news for us because it means the law society is finally attempting to take action against her, which should’ve happened in 2023.”
