Investigation finds many legal professionals kept or regained licences despite serious wrongdoing involving minors
Ontario’s legal regulators are facing renewed scrutiny over how they handle child sexual offences and misconduct by lawyers after an investigation found many legal professionals kept or regained their licences despite serious wrongdoing involving minors.
An analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) under the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health identified 35 cases since 2000 in which Canadian lawyers and judges were criminally convicted or professionally disciplined for child sexual offences or misconduct. Only 14 of those cases resulted in licence revocation, while most others led to suspensions, fines or retirement in lieu of permanent removal from practise, according to the IJB.
The IJB also found four additional cases where lawyers were licensed after prior criminal convictions for child sexual offences, bringing the total number of cases reviewed to 39. The investigation concludes these files “reveal a system that is slow to respond when legal professionals commit offences or engage in misconduct including child luring, sex with minors and possessing child sexual abuse material,” and that penalties often fall short of what some observers consider meaningful accountability.
Previously, a former Winnipeg school support worker faces a potential sentence of nearly three decades in prison after pleading guilty to sexually exploiting teen students and possessing child sexual abuse materials over a five‑year period.
High‑profile cases highlight discipline delays
One of the most serious cases highlighted by the IJB involves former Ontario criminal lawyer Gavin McNeill Grant. According to a Law Society Tribunal decision, Grant impregnated a 17‑year‑old Crown ward, showed co‑workers photos of her in lingerie and also assaulted two women, including a client‑turned‑girlfriend. The tribunal found “his conduct exploited the power imbalance created by his status as a lawyer and was predatory in nature,” calling it “conduct of the worst sort.”
The LSO’s disciplinary tribunal suspended his licence in late 2018 and revoked it in January 2022. The Law Society of Alberta, where Grant was also licensed, revoked his licence 20 months later.
Grant was not criminally charged in Canada and had already moved to Thailand before his licences were revoked. In 2018 disciplinary documents he “denied much of the evidence against him;" the IJB says it was unable to reach him for comment.
In 2024, a youth worker in Alberta was charged with child sexual exploitation offences after Saskatchewan’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) division learned about his offences.
Different standards and ‘good character’ debates
The IJB’s reporting points to sharp contrasts between how the legal profession and other regulated sectors respond to sexual misconduct involving minors. In Ontario, teachers face mandatory licence revocation for sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse material, and health‑care practitioners regulated by the province’s 29 health colleges also face mandatory revocation for sexual abuse of patients. Lawyers found to have committed comparable offences face no such mandatory penalty and are disciplined case by case.
The investigation also notes that presumptive revocation is generally reserved for serious financial misconduct such as misappropriation of trust funds and real estate fraud. Other offences, including child‑related sexual misconduct, are assessed on factors such as seriousness, duration, impact and remorse, and do not automatically trigger the harshest sanction.
At least four lawyers have been licensed since 2000 after good character hearings that examined previous sexual abuse of minors, the IJB found. One, former teacher and now London, Ont., lawyer James Melnick, pleaded guilty in 2006 to sexual exploitation and child luring, served six months in prison and lost his teaching licence in 2007. An LSO panel later ruled that evidence “overwhelmingly supports a finding that (Melnick) is now of good character,” and he continues to practise; his public LSO profile does not reference his conviction or pardon, the IJB reports.
Here’s list of identifiable cases concerning lawyers accused of that surfaced in LSO tribunal proceedings, court records, and IJB reporting:
