Admission Denied For Cheating On Remote Licensing Examination
The Ontario Law Society Tribunal Hearing Division has denied admission to an applicant
Harneet Kaur (the applicant) is a paralegal who has applied for a licence as a lawyer. The Law Society alleges that she is not of good character. It says she should not be licensed because she cheated on the November 2021 barrister exam, and because she then made misleading statements in the investigation into her cheating.
The applicant admits that she received and used two cheat keys that were circulated in what is now a well-known cheating scandal. But she says that she did not mean to cheat. In her mind, the fact that the questions on the exam were practically identical to the questions on the cheat keys was pure coincidence. She never formed the intention to cheat on her exam.
We reject her position on this point. As we explain below, a forensic analysis of her exam answers shows an overwhelming probability that the applicant did not answer the exam questions independently. In addition to the compelling statistical evidence, her conduct in preparing for the exam points clearly to her knowing involvement in cheating. In other words, the applicant knew that the materials were designed to be used to cheat on the exam. She deliberately used them for that purpose.
In addition, when the Law Society investigated her role in the cheating scandal, she attempted to mislead its investigators. The applicant says that she did not provide clear and forthright answers to the investigators because she was going through a period of intense stress. She says that she did not deliberately mislead investigators.
The majority of the panel accepts that the applicant was dealing with very difficult personal circumstances during the investigation. But we don’t accept that this prevented her from answering the Law Society’s questions truthfully. We conclude that she deliberately made misleading representations during the investigation.
The minority disagrees with this conclusion and finds that the respondent did not deliberately mislead investigators.
The opinion details the facts surrounding the November 2021 licensing examination, which was conducted online because of the pandemic as well as the ensuing investigation into cheating.
Conclusion
The Lawyer Licensing Application incorporates the Rules and Protocol as one of the documents that applicants declare that they have read and agree to abide by. The applicant signed this declaration. She also signed the Candidate Agreement, which reproduces the substance of what is set out in the Rules and Protocol. We find that this shows that the applicant was given notice in the clearest terms of what constitutes cheating and what are the consequences of cheating.