Harper's lawyer on the Cadman case withdraws...

"I don't remember in the annals of history anybody firing the Prime Minister as a client, but that seems to be what happened," said Chris Paliare, the lawyer representing the Liberal Party.

Oh gee, Conservative donors, your hard earned dollars that you hand over to the Conservative party are going to have to pay for a new expensive lawyer to get up to speed on the Harper/Cadman litigation. More well spent Conservative donations! Because for some reason, Mr. Dearden, Harper's lawyer in the matter, has suddenly removed himself from the case. Just when we're getting to the good part, the injunction hearing on the audiotape. This is truly a bizarre development given the client, the publicity attaching to this case and the pending injunction hearing. For a lawyer to remove himself prior to a hearing like this, with the possible prejudice the client could suffer as a result, is significant.

Lawyer Richard Dearden withdrew Monday from representing Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his $3.5 million defamation case against the Liberals for alleging that he knew of an attempted bribe of the late Independent MP Chuck Cadman.

Dearden confirmed that he informed the court and Liberal party counsel Chris Paliare of his decision to withdraw from the case during a teleconference call Monday with Justice Charles Hackland.

Dearden, counsel with the Gowlings law firm, declined to cite his reasons, saying that is privileged information.

The Canwest report helpfully reminds us of the situations in which lawyers will remove themselves from a file:

Paliare said Dearden did not state the reasons during the conference call. But he said there are generally two grounds on which lawyers withdraw from a case.

One is if they are not paid, which is inconceivable in this case. The other is if there is a breakdown in the lawyer-client relationship which makes it inappropriate for the lawyer to continue the work.

Hmmm, that's a very interesting possibility to contemplate. Sometimes a client does not take the lawyer's advice. Sometimes a client fires the lawyer. We don't know exactly what's going on. But it is document and information production time in this case and maybe that was becoming a problem for Harper's lawyer to execute. From the Globe:

The lawyer for the Liberals said Mr. Dearden was behind schedule in providing the Liberals with required documents.

Among the items the Liberals were waiting for Mr. Dearden to produce were details of a four-hour meeting in early 2008 in which Mr. Harper discussed the issue with his senior communications staff.

Mr. Paliare said earlier evidence in court suggested the meeting was attended by such senior aides as Sandra Buckler, his former director of communications, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen and Ryan Sparrow, the lead spokesman for the Conservative Party.

The details of this meeting may be one of many undertakings to provide information given by Dearden while Harper was cross-examined under oath in the case. That information would be required to be produced before the injunction hearing on the suppression of the audiotape. Dearden's removal at this time suggests that it has something to do with the stage the case is at. But again, we don't know.

And then of course, let's remember all the other problems in the case too. Peter Russell's affidavit in which he calls Harper's suing of the Liberal opposition "characteristic of authoritarian governments." Dona Cadman, newly minted Conservative MP having affirmed under oath that the infamous audiotape is the same now as when author Tom Zytaruk first played it to her on the day it was made. And then there were the expert reports on the authenticity of that audiotape which have confirmed that the beginning part, where Harper speaks of financial considerations being made to Cadman, is undisturbed. Throw in Harper making representations to the media on what the expert reports on the audiotape mean....and it's not exactly a day at the beach, this case. Must be a bugger to put all this together and reconcile, if you're representing Harper, heading into an injunction hearing. Case doesn't look good.

That's a shame for this news to be breaking as the House resumes...