LAW SOCIETY TRIBUNAL
HEARING DIVISION
Tribunal File No.: 24H-093
BETWEEN:
Law Society of Ontario
Applicant
- and -
Danielle Shannon Harrison
Respondent
Before: Margaret Waddell (chair), Margaret Leighton, Eric Whist
Heard: March 10, 2026, by videoconference, and by written submissions
Appearances:
Louise Hurteau, for the applicant
Leo Adler, for the respondent
Summary:
HARRISON – Mortgage Fraud – Penalty and Costs – The Lawyer had been found to have engaged in professional misconduct by being reckless and willfully blind and knowingly participating in mortgage fraud and acting without integrity – The panel found that there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant a departure from the presumptive penalty of a revocation – The Lawyer’s license was revoked immediately and she was ordered to pay costs of $100,000 to the Law Society.
REASONS FOR DECISION ON PENALTY AND COSTS
1Margaret Waddell (for the panel):– By reasons for decision dated July 31, 2025, Law Society of Ontario v Harrison, 2025 ONLSTH 98, we found that the respondent, Danielle Shannon Harrison, had engaged in professional misconduct.
2Particularly, we found that Ms. Harrison had engaged in a continuum of misconduct starting with acting in circumstances where she ought to have known that she was assisting, facilitating, or participating in dishonest or fraudulent conduct involving her lender clients and others. She then acted with reckless disregard to the fact that she was facilitating or participating in dishonest or fraudulent conduct involving her lender clients and others, and was reckless to the potential harm to the borrowers in so doing. Then Ms. Harrison was willfully blind to the fact that she was assisting, facilitating, or participating in dishonest or fraudulent conduct involving her lender clients. Finally, we found that Ms. Harrison knowingly assisted, facilitated, or participated in dishonest or fraudulent conduct involving her lender clients and others.
3In addition to our findings that Ms. Harrison participated in mortgage fraud, we also found that she had acted in a conflict of interest, misled the Law Society, and had commissioned false affidavits.
4This matter was scheduled for submissions on penalty and costs to be argued on March 10, 2026. Counsel for Ms. Harrison was not prepared to respond to the Law Society’s submissions on costs, so we allowed a brief adjournment to permit responding cost submissions to be submitted in writing followed by a written reply from the Law Society.
5At the penalty hearing, Ms. Harrison tendered the evidence of a psychologist, Dr. Jason Ramsey, and gave her own evidence regarding her personal circumstances at the time of the misconduct and after the Law Society’s investigation and conduct hearing were underway. She also tendered several character reference letters. Both Ms. Harrison’s and Dr. Ramsey’s evidence were intended to provide evidence of exceptional circumstances that would warrant a departure from the presumptive penalty of licence revocation which typically follows a finding that a licensee has engaged in mortgage fraud.
6For the reasons that follow, we find that there are no exceptional circumstances in this case, and Ms. Harrison’s licence shall be revoked immediately. The respondent shall comply with the terms of the Law Society’s Guidelines for Former Lawyers Whose Licences Have Been Revoked or Who Have Been Permitted to Surrender Their Licences.
7Costs are awarded to the Law Society in the amount of $100,000, payable in four equal installments, with interest accruing at the rate of 4% per year in respect of any overdue payment.
PENALTY
Revocation of license is the presumptive penalty for mortgage fraud
8There was no dispute between the parties for the purpose of this hearing that, based upon our findings, Ms. Harrison knowingly engaged in mortgage fraud, the presumptive penalty is revocation of her licence. This presumptive penalty is well established in the jurisprudence since at least 2008 in the case of Law Society of Upper Canada v Mucha, 2008 ONLSAP 5 at paras 20-23. A panel may only deviate from the presumptive penalty when the licensee is able to establish that there are exceptional circumstances that would mitigate against that result.
9This is so because maintaining the integrity of the profession is the paramount consideration. It is fundamentally imperative that licensees act with honesty at all times to maintain the public’s confidence in the professions, and to safeguard the special rights and privileged conferred on the professions. To this effect, the Mucha Appeal Panel quoted from Bolton v Law Society, [1993] EWCA Civ 32 at para 14:
Any solicitor who is shown to have discharged his professional duties with anything less than complete integrity, probity and trustworthiness must expect severe sanctions to be imposed upon him by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Lapses from the required high standard may, of course, take different forms and be of varying degrees. The most serious involves proven dishonesty, whether or not leading to criminal proceedings and criminal penalties. In such cases the tribunal has almost invariably, no matter how strong the mitigation advanced for the solicitor, ordered that he be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.
(emphasis added)
10License revocation was accepted as a presumptive penalty in Bishop v Law Society of Upper Canada, 2014 ONSC 5057 (Div. Ct.), and by the Court of Appeal in The Law Society of Upper Canada v Abbott, 2017 ONCA 525 at paras 21, 22, and 78. At para 78 of Abbott, the Court of Appeal stated:
The key point made in all of the mortgage fraud lawyer discipline cases is that dishonest misconduct presumptively results in revocation. It is in a different register, or of a different quality, than other lawyerly misconduct. The cases question whether, in the public interest, the profession can accept the continued licensing of a person who has shown himself to be willing to participate, for personal gain, in stealing someone else’s money; does the member have the moral character to continue to be in a position of trust? To repeat the words of Sir Thomas Bingham M.R. in Bolton, at para. 16, the “character question” gets at “the need to maintain among members of the public a well-founded confidence that any solicitor whom they instruct will be a person of unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness.”
11More recently, the appeal panel in Law Society of Ontario v Wilkins, 2021 ONLSTA 15 confirmed at para 71 that professional misconduct involving proven dishonesty typically warrants revocation. At para 74 it stated:
Where a lawyer is found to have knowingly assisted or participated in mortgage fraud, the presumptive penalty is licence revocation. This is because the most serious dishonesty requires revocation in order to safeguard the reputation of the profession in the eyes of the public.
12This position on penalty is based on the need to send a consistent message to the public and the professions that fraudulent conduct by a licensee such as occurred here will not be tolerated because of its impact on the professions as a whole.
13We have found that Ms. Harrison did not act with unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness. Her conduct was of the most egregious character, as it involved not just serious dishonesty and a lack of probity on her part, but it involved predation on vulnerable senior citizens, putting them at risk of losing their homes. Accordingly, unless Ms. Harrison could establish exceptional circumstances, the presumptive penalty for her misconduct is revocation of her licence.
The licensee’s evidence does not establish exceptional circumstances
14Given the overriding public interest in maintaining the integrity of the professions, only evidence of exceptional circumstances will justify a departure from the presumptive penalty of revocation: Mucha at para 23, Wilkins at para 164.
15The leading authority on exceptional circumstances is Bishop v Law Society of Upper Canada, 2014 ONSC 5057 (Div. Ct.). At para 31, Justice Nordheimer provided a non-exhaustive list of possible exceptional circumstances including medical reasons or financial desperation or situations of duress. He explained that, “any such factors will normally have to be ones that would rise to the level where it would be obvious to other members of the profession, and to the public, that the underlying circumstances of the individual clearly obviated the need to provide reassurance to them of the integrity of the profession.”
16Since Bishop, it has been accepted that to make out a case of exceptional circumstances, the licensee will have to demonstrate that the licensee’s underlying circumstances at the time of the misconduct were so obviously out of character and arose from unique circumstances that caused the licensee to act as she did, and that the conduct would not be repeated, so that the public would be satisfied that the integrity of the profession is not put into question by a penalty less than revocation: Wilkins at paras 164-166. This is an extremely high threshold, which is rarely met.
17Here, Ms. Harrison produced the clinician’s notes from her many attendances for counselling with Homewood Health starting in June 2023 until December 2025. These records were provided to Dr. Ramsay and reviewed by him as part of his psychological assessment of Ms. Harrison. Dr. Ramsay also met with Ms. Harrison on two occasions – January 28, 2026, in person, and February 9, 2026, by telephone. Ms. Harrison was also subjected to testing on January 21 and 28, 2026 by members of Dr. Ramsay’s team. Both of these meetings and the testing took place after this panel had made its merits decision and while this penalty hearing was pending.
18Dr. Ramsay was tendered as an expert in the treatment of psychological disorders in adults in a clinical setting. He delivered a report dated February 23, 2026.
19Dr. Ramsay’s assessment of Ms. Harrison relied upon her self-reporting to him and to the Homewood clinician, as well as the psychological testing she underwent. He concluded that Ms. Harrison had been suffering from “caregiver burnout”, which is not a DSM-recognized disorder, but reflects a state of stress that arose from the burden of caring for Ms. Harrison’s mother, who was suffering from dementia and eventually became bedridden.
20On cross-examination, Dr. Ramsay readily admitted that his report was not a medical-legal report addressing any causal link between Ms. Harrison’s behaviour and her mental health. He confirmed that he could not, and did not opine on whether Ms. Harrison’s mental health was linked to a risk to the public. He is not a forensic psychologist.
21Dr. Ramsay’s evidence was clear that he could not connect the risk of caregiver burnout, which Ms. Harrison may have been suffering from in 2021-2023, with her involvement in mortgage fraud, or her other failures to act with integrity. He confirmed that he could only comment on how he saw her, when he assessed her.
22We agree with the submissions of the Law Society that the evidence of Dr. Ramsay provides no assistance to the licensee in establishing exceptional circumstances. It does not provide evidence that Ms. Harrison was suffering from caregiver burnout at the time of her misconduct, and it provides no causal connection between caregiver burnout and the misconduct. The evidence at the merits hearing demonstrated that Ms. Harrison was managing her professional responsibilities and her personal responsibilities without seeking any accommodations or assistance.
23Ms. Harrison also testified on her own behalf at the penalty hearing. She emphasized her great desire to continue to be a lawyer, and to right the wrongs that she has done. She suggested that she would not return to a real estate practice, if she was permitted to retain her license; however, she offered no plan for what her future practice might look like.
24Ms. Harrison testified about the tragedies that she has suffered in her personal life, starting with the death of her fiancé in 2010, and then focussing on her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and steady decline until her death in 2025. Her mother became bedridden in 2021, at which point she began to receive LHIN home caregiver services, in addition to the care that Ms. Harrison and a family friend provided.
25Ms. Harrison’s evidence was that during this time, she put her head down and moved from task to task, at a fast pace. Her mother’s condition worsened in January 2021, and then she suffered a fall in August 2021, and became bedridden.
26By October 2021, Ms. Harrison had assistance of a PSW and wound care specialist from the LHIN. She testified that she felt that she was managing both the home and work obligations, “just burying myself and continuing to work.” The first of the third-party notices about potential fraud began at the same time, October 2021, as Ms. Harrison began to receive professional assistance to assist with her mother’s care. Ms. Harrison’s evidence does not support that she was suffering from burnout as the red flags arose.
27Ms. Harrison testified that she did not slow down, and was doing what needed to be done. However, and importantly, Ms. Harrison did not say that the burdens that she bore in caring for her mother impacted on her judgment or had any effect on the decisions that she made in her legal practice. We find that these burdens did not affect her professional judgment.
28Ms. Harrison filed seven character reference letters with the panel. Of particular relevance is the letter from Alaina Turney, a repeat client of Ms. Harrison. Ms. Turney’s experience with Ms. Harrison was that she was “hardworking, reliable, and deeply committed to the people she serves. She consistently demonstrated strong communication, professionalism, and care for her work.” Similarly, Deana Post, a staff member at Keyser Mason Ball, described Ms. Harrison as “a hardworking and conscientious lawyer who handled significant pressure in the workplace.” The other references were to the same effect. This is wholly inconsistent with the picture that Ms. Harrison attempted to paint at the penalty hearing of a young lawyer overwhelmed by caregiver burdens.
29Much of Ms. Harrison’s evidence about the adverse impacts that she has suffered are not from the time of the misconduct but rather relate to the stressors that she has experienced since she received her first interim suspension. None of that evidence is relevant to the question of whether there were exceptional circumstances that caused the misconduct in question. The mortgage fraud in which Ms. Harrison engaged is a serious departure from an ethical practice, and no exceptional circumstances explanation for the misconduct has been proffered. The evidence of her reactions after the fact does not assist.
30In summary, we conclude that Ms. Harrison has not established any exceptional circumstances that would justify a penalty other than revocation of her license. Accordingly, we order that Ms. Harrison’s license shall be revoked effective immediately.
COSTS
31Costs of a conduct hearing are in the discretion of the panel, pursuant to s 49.28 of the Law Society Act, RSO 1990, c L.8. The costs may include the costs of and incidental to the proceeding, including expenses incurred for the investigation of the subject matter of the proceeding.
32It is well-established that the legal professions as a whole should not bear the costs of prosecuting the misconduct of a few licensees, where the misconduct is has been proven. Costs are not an additional penalty on the licensee; they defray amounts paid by the licensees through their fees. They compensate for both investigation and the hearing: Law Society of Ontario v Perrelli, 2018 ONLSTH 80 at para 30.
33The factors that the panel is to consider in awarding costs are set out in Law Society of Ontario v Mazinani, 2021 ONLSTH 72, citing several decisions from the Appeal Division. The factors are:
the amount of costs involved in the proceeding;
the complexity of the proceeding;
the importance of the issues;
the duration of the hearing;
the conduct of any party that tended to shorten or to unnecessarily lengthen the proceeding;
whether any step in the proceeding was improper, vexatious or unnecessary, or taken through mistake or excessive caution;
the ability of the party to pay a costs award;
the reasonable expectations of the parties;
costs awarded in other cases;
the principle of proportionality; and
the circumstances of the proceeding.
34In Law Society of Ontario v Khan, 2021 ONLSTA 7 at para 9, the Appeal Division suggested a modified approach to the determination of costs, which invites the panel to first consider a range of costs ordered in like cases, before evaluating the other factors. We have followed that process here.
Amount of costs and reasonable expectations
35The Law Society delivered its bill of costs, which was made Exhibit 11 to this proceeding. The costs did not include any amount for the time expended by the LSO’s counsel for the attendance at the penalty and cost hearing, or for the reply on costs which the panel has ordered.
36The Law Society seeks costs totalling $106,428, which includes the time for two discipline counsel and the investigator’s time. It argues that costs in this amount are appropriate, proportionate, tariff-based and grounded in the Tribunal’s jurisprudence.
37The costs sought by the Law Society includes the time spent on the following procedural steps:
the investigation
the second motion for an interlocutory suspension;
several PMC attendances;
the preparation and negotiation of an agreed statement of facts;
calling six witnesses at the hearing, including two lawyers from Ms. Harrison’s former firm, and one former lawyer of that firm; and
attending at the merits hearing for a total of seven days, including opening and closing arguments, and the hearing on penalty and costs, which included written submissions on costs.
38There is no suggestion that the Law Society caused costs to be wasted for any reason in the merits hearing before us, or in respect of the hearing on penalty and costs. To the contrary, we conclude that the case presented by the Law Society was focused carefully on the matters in issue, which were factually complex, involving 41 transactions, with Ms. Harrison acting in different capacities for different transactions. The respondent did not admit the most serious misconduct, requiring the Law Society to prepare fully for a contested hearing. The Law Society appropriately responded to the defence Ms. Harrison presented in which she attempted to mitigate her role in the fraud and deflect responsibility to other members of her former firm.
39The Law Society helpfully provided a chart comparing costs decisions in recent Law Society Tribunal cases. The costs of those proceedings ranged from a low of $69,623 to a high of $219,941. The hearings varied from one to ten days, and were of varying complexity. Here, the costs include both the second interlocutory hearing, which was two days long, and the merits hearing which was seven days, plus another day for the penalty hearing and written cost submissions. The costs sought by the Law Society are on the low end for a hearing of this complexity and length.
40Ms. Harrison argued that the costs sought by the Law Society are excessive. She argued that the costs that she incurred with respect to the first interlocutory suspension and her successful appeal from it should be taken into consideration by this panel to reduce the costs award. Additionally, she argued that there was overlap between the work of the counsel assigned to work on this matter justifying a discount in the costs awarded. Finally, she argues that the matter was not particularly complex.
41Ms. Harrison did not argue that the amount of the costs sought by the Law Society exceeded her reasonable expectations. Based on the chart of comparable costs awards, the costs sought by the Law Society should have been within the reasonable expectations of Ms. Harrison.
42The Law Society appropriately did not include its time with respect to the first interlocutory suspension and appeal. The issue of costs from those proceedings is not before us, it was a matter addressed by the appeal panel in the first appeal: Law Society of Ontario v Harrison, 2024 ONLSTA 1. Ms. Harrison is not entitled to a discount on the costs in relation to the matters before us in relation to other prior proceedings. We note, parenthetically, that under Rule 15.1(1)(b), costs may only be awarded against the Law Society in an interlocutory suspension motion in exceptional circumstances “where [it]… caused costs to be incurred without reasonable cause or to be wasted by undue delay, negligence or other default.” This provision may be triggered by procedural steps taken by the Law Society that are “outside the bounds of reasonableness.” (Law Society of Ontario v Sorrenti, 2020 ONLSTH 87 at paras 4-5) That was not so in this case, as it was ultimately borne out by the second successful suspension application.
43We conclude that all of the time expended and claimed by the Law Society was reasonable and appropriate given the complexity and importance of the matter. We note that there was likely a small degree of duplicating overlap in the time expended by senior and more junior counsel for the second interlocutory proceeding, although the involvement of two counsel was reasonable. Accordingly, we reduce the costs claimed to $100,000 to account for the duplication in time.
The complexity and importance of the issues
44Ms. Harrison argued that the nature of the fraud in which she participated was not a well-established category of mortgage fraud, and she suggested that some of the victims of the fraud had avoided harm through the settlement of civil claims. The second argument is not relevant to the issue of the costs to which the Law Society is entitled. It was successful in establishing that Ms. Harrison engaged in mortgage fraud that was targeted at and caused harm to vulnerable seniors. The fact that some of the victims successfully settled civil claims is irrelevant to the issue of the costs to be assessed against Ms. Harrison in respect of this discipline proceeding.
45On the first point, the fact that this was a relatively new form of mortgage fraud does not help Ms. Harrison. Rather, it justifies the careful and comprehensive presentation of the Law Society’s evidence to demonstrate that the conduct in which Ms. Harrison engaged was a form of mortgage fraud.
46We conclude that this is an appropriate case to include the investigator’s time given that there were 41 different transactions in issue, Ms. Harrison was delinquent in providing the trust ledgers to the Law Society, and she did not disclose the files she was operating through her own professional corporation until that business was disclosed by a third party to the Law Society. The time of the investigator was appropriately included in the costs request.
47There is no dispute that the issues in this case were important to both the parties and to the public. It is very important that the Law Society fulfil its mandate of protecting the public from mortgage fraud. Where, as here, the victims were vulnerable seniors, the importance of this aspect of the case cannot be underemphasized.
Ability and time to pay the costs
48Finally, Ms. Harrison asks for time to pay the costs, noting that panels may draw an inference about the need for time to pay, based on the negative financial impact that the discipline order will have on the licensee, who must now change careers. She cites Law Society of Ontario v Perrelli, 2018 ONLSTH 80 at para 47. However, in the very same paragraph, the panel confirmed that “When ability to pay is contested, the licensee must provide evidence of his or her situation”.
49Ms. Harrison did not adduce any evidence that she is not able to pay the costs award sought by the Law Society, but she asks for a year to pay, relying on s 58(1) of By-Law 11. Section 58(1) provides that in the absence of a specified time to pay, costs shall be paid within one year of the date of the costs order.
50During the penalty and costs hearing, Ms. Harrison’s evidence was that after her suspension, she returned to school and has obtained an HR certification. She is working as an HR manager in the human resources department of a collection agency. In the counselling notes that she produced, she is reported as telling her counsellor at Homewood Health that she has a “six-figure sum owed to her by some friends” and she is a beneficiary of her mother’s estate. Based on the whole of the evidence before us, we conclude that there is no evidence that Ms. Harrison in unable to pay a costs award in the amount sought by the Law Society, or that she will need a year in order to make the payment.
51We accept that Ms. Harrison may need some time to arrange her affairs to pay the costs award. We conclude that the costs should be paid in four equal installments of $25,000 each, the first within 90 days, the second within 180 days, the third within 270 days and the fourth within 365 days of the date of this order, with interest to accrue on any unpaid balance.
DISPOSITION
52We order that:
The respondent’s licence to practise law is revoked, effective immediately.
The respondent shall comply fully with the terms of the Law Society’s Guidelines for Former Lawyers Whose Licences Have Been Revoked or Who Have Been Permitted to Surrender Their Licences.
The respondent shall pay costs to the Law Society in the amount of $100,000 in four equal installments of $25,000 each:
a. the first by August 18, 2026;
b. the second by November 16, 2026;
c. the third by February 16, 2027; and
d. the fourth by May 20, 2027.
- Interest shall accrue on any overdue portion of these costs at a rate of 4% per year.