Obviously one of my pet peeves as a former witness was their continual disregard for women and their demand for obedience from us "inferior" beings. As I would read the literature, I would be inferiorated as they would begin talking about sins or anything negative and immediately change to the feminine sense. Hell, even the Bible does that - remember this scripture from the New World Translation: "Listen to your father who caused your birth, and do not despise your mother just because she has grown old." (Proverbs 23:22) What is this anyway? Women cause the birth of children for the most part. They suffer for hours on in bringing them into the world. And what, men don't get old. Their parts shrivel up too and they look just as ugly. The Society was no exception in printing other literature. When they would hit something that was negative, they would swtich over to the feminine sense. It would irritate the hell out of me.
So when I read the following post this evening from one of our friends, I had to laugh because it reminded me of this stigma that I think women will live with for centuries to come. I've deleted any reference to the posters name, but notice that the topic was completely about men, but when he hit a negative aspect, he change it to the feminine tense.
Well I don't want to speculate much, not knowing any of the facts (beyond what you presented) however, my presumption is that McCabe (or one of his associates) was likely the one (lawyer) that also handled all the PAPERWORK involved in this little tricky scenario.
As you noted, McCabe is the WTBTS lawyer for all intensive purposes since he serves as the agent for legal process in California at least. His client is the WTBTS which is another way of saying that.
Generally speaking, a lawyer is not permitted to enter into a Self-Dealing transaction with a client. (For example drawing up a WILL whereby the lawyer receives something in the WILL or engaging in other businesses with a client.)
This general ethical prohibition is due to the central Duties an Attorney has of Candor, Loyalty to the Client, and the obligation to engage in fair unbiased counsel to the client.
A lawyer who is benefiting by some transaction with the client (other than fees for his work of course) might be compromised in how she advises her client and may not always use the best judgement and in serious bad cases, might even misadvise the client to the client's harm in order to benefit the lawyer.
Thus in any self-dealing transaction, a lawyer typically must get a signed Waiver from the Client (WTBTS) or she will find herself in a bad position should the Client ever raise a fuss. Many lawyers have been disciplined including being disbarred for failing to obtain such a waiver.
In this case, too, I probably would obtain a signed Disclosure and Waiver from the Lehrer's also acknowledging what they probably already know of course that McCabe is the Society's lawyer, especially if McCabe handled the Purchase Agreement and other paperwork.
There are probably other things that I am forgetting at this late hour but you get the idea.
This is certainly unusual in the legal sense and few purchasers of property would go for this arrangement --it is bad enough to have a Lender holding a large mortgage over your head but then to be made to add a legal representative of the Lender on the deed as a purchaser so that subsequent sale or even making significant changes to the property would require the Lender representative's approval is a bit much in the normal world. Obviously, the Lehrers understand and are in agreement with it all and probably this the only way they could acquire the property anyway.