Among the things I do as a lawyer is represent a lot of people in professional misconduct proceedings. People like teachers, accountants, police officers and medical professionals. It's a diverse group, but the one thing they all have in common is that the professional regulator that oversees their conduct has decided to inquire into whether they have contravened some kind of professional standard. Sometimes the concern is competence. Sometimes mental health. At other times, breach of ethical or other legal standards.
The numbers of regulated professionals in Canada is huge. The Ontario College of Teachers alone has 230,00 members (and very well laid out discipline hearing rooms I might add)! Thus I thought a blog devoted to professional misconduct defence in Canada was warranted for those facing disciplinary proceedings, or those seeking to assist them.
The reality is that conviction for professional misconduct might have a far greater and longer lasting impact that a conviction for a criminal offence, because of the way it fundamentally threatens ability to earn a living and effectively deprive the target of decades of hard won educational attainment.
The other reality is that conviction is possible on merely a balance of probabilities standard, not on the much more onerous proof beyond a reasonable doubt criminal standard.
While there's lots of information out there about the criminal court process, and court procedures across Canada are fairly standardized, professional misconduct proceedings can be an opaque and inconsistent realm, where not much is explained in advance, and practices between regulatory bodies can vary greatly.
In this blog, I'll seek to pull back the curtain a bit, and show you through the professional discipline window what really goes on, including how best to respond to investigations, how best to informally resolve matter prior to their getting to a hearing stage, and how best to mount a vigorous defence at a hearing if it's not possible to stop proceedings prior to that time.
While I've by no means dealt with every professional regulator in Canada, I will try to contrast different approach to misconduct investigation and prosecution among regulators, and draw on my experience across an array of professions regulators.
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