And, yes I know it should be “defence”. When in Rome and all that.
Anyway, it seems to be pretty much the same, eh? Not that a prominent downtown Toronto criminal defence law firm is having some employee problems – although that’s the same, too – but rather the whole picture, and especially the private but genuine opinions held by the CDL’s as revealed through emails:
The well-known downtown Toronto firm — formerly Pinkofskys Criminal Trial and Appeal lawyers — has a reputation for aggressive lawyering and representing clients facing murder, drugs, gun and gang charges…
And here you thought people in Canada don’t know about guns since they have no 2nd amendment, and the only “gangs” they have any experience with are the guys that meet in the mornings before they go out and club the cute little baby seals to death. Nope, Toronto is this big urban place with all the usual problems, including large criminal defence firms that say too much in emails:
One email from a lawyer within the company described a Crown attorney looking “like a baby lizard on crack.” Another lawyer referred to an Ontario court judge as a “useless tit,” while another commented “the zoo is aware he has escaped.”
The document also includes numerous email excerpts which allegedly “demonstrate” how it was “perfectly acceptable within the firm culture” to make “disparaging remarks” in email.
The examples refer to lawyers in and outside the firm as “closet felchers,” “fags,” “stupid, fat and lazy,” and “delusional, lazy and cheap.”
Well. So much for the reserved and polite Canadians.
