The Crusader: Ontario Grants Admission Despite Prior Social Media Abuse

The Law Society of Ontario Tribunal Hearing Division allowed (granted) an application for admission where the issue was the applicant’s prior use of social media (and a middle-finger salute) 

In 2015, the Law Society received four complaints about some of Ms. Guo’s conduct while she was an articling student. The complaints involved a period of approximately six months during which Ms. Guo’s communications and her actions toward a number of persons were inappropriate, disrespectful and unprofessional. Relevant exchanges or occurrences played out in public and in person, as well as on various social media platforms.

While Ms. Guo’s use of social media was central to the complaints, it was not her use of social media per se that concerned the Law Society. The parties agreed that it can be good for students-at-law and licensees to use social media actively, voicing opinions, engaging in debate, advocating for change or advancing positions in public that may be unpopular or even uncomfortable for other participants in public discourse. However, the nature and tone of a significant number of Ms. Guo’s communications and actions during the material time raised concerns about Ms. Guo’s judgment and her insight into the impact of her actions. It was on this basis that the Law Society referred Ms. Guo’s licensing application for a good character hearing.

The first three complaints came while she was articling

On July 15, 2015, Ms. Guo went to Civil Intake at the Superior Court in Toronto to file a statement of defence. According to Ms. Guo, after waiting over four hours for her number to be called, she became impatient and confronted the intake staff about the long wait. She got into in a verbal altercation with staff and “flipped” her middle finger at them. Staff called building security, who escorted Ms. Guo out of the building. On her way out, Ms. Guo demanded that the security officer cite a specific authority for removing her from the building, but there was no response. When she tried to re-enter the building to photograph the officer’s badge, he yelled at her and slammed her to the ground outside. She was arrested for trespassing and handcuffed pending the arrival of police. The police laid no charges, and Ms. Guo was released later the same day.

Approximately a week after her arrest, Ms. Guo posted on Craigslist and Reddit, looking for a witness to what she believed to be her illegal arrest. When other users of Reddit responded to her initial post, Ms. Guo engaged in a discussion in which she explained that she was trying to photograph the officer’s badge number and name because he did not cite any “specific legal authority to deny me my access to the courts.” In doing so, Ms. Guo used very strong and colourful language. Some of the Reddit users criticized the way that Ms. Guo had handled the situation at the Superior Court building and her attitude toward others on the thread, including warning her that if she wanted to be a good lawyer she should not act “in an unprofessional manner as you did yesterday and continue to do here.”

In July 2015, the Law Society received information about Ms. Guo’s posts on her personal Twitter account, alleging that the tweets appeared to include “loose talk about confidential negotiations, images glorifying violence, and insults aimed at other lawyers,” and advising that Ms. Guo had recently been detained, although not charged, outside a Toronto court. The information received by the Law Society contained copies of some of Ms. Guo’s tweets, including: details about her recent detention and arrest; an issue relating to a client being detained and not brought to court; personalized, intemperate posts about a criminal lawyer; and discussions about charting the locations of members of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA) from analyzing CLA listserv e-mails. A good character investigation was instructed shortly after that.

On July 16, 2015, Ms. Guo posted a question on the CLA listserv about whether lawyers are permitted to solicit unrepresented accused persons in courthouses.

A key purpose of the CLA listserv is to facilitate one-to-many communications amongst members of the CLA, allowing members to exchange information and ideas, and to post and answer questions. Members of the listserv are expected to keep listserv communications confidential. In order to facilitate full and frank communications, listserv participants are free to use information received, but must not attribute the information and must maintain in confidence the identities and affiliations of other participants. The requirement of confidentiality is expressed in writing in the terms of use on the CLA website, a link to which was included in each e-mail relayed by the listserv.

A number of people responded to Ms. Guo’s question, and the discussion on the CLA listserv devolved into an argument about the concept of white male privilege. Some CLA members, including lawyer JW, felt that Ms. Guo’s posts about this were denigrating and offensive. Among other things, Ms. Guo responded:

As for first impressions and how omg you won’t ever be able to get over this – oh gee. Another overly sensitive colleague I’ve managed to piss off because I don’t sugar-coat my words. Join the club.

 During and after the time period of the posts exchanged on the listserv, Ms. Guo also posted comments on her Twitter account about the CLA listserv discussion. Some licensees felt that Ms. Guo’s tweets were upsetting and inappropriate. Some of her posts on Twitter also appeared to breach the confidentiality expected of members of the listserv. In response, two CLA members and lawyers (JH and RM) contacted Ms. Guo privately about her posts on the listserv and Twitter. They suggested that she stop posting and not further escalate the dispute, warning that Ms. Guo risked ruining her career before it even started, and noting possible concerns regarding her governability and good character. Ms. Guo responded with hostility, telling them both that she was not interested in their unsolicited advice and that she believed that they were attempting to censor her because they did not agree with her opinions regarding white male privilege.

Complaint four

   In the second half of 2015, Ms. Guo set up a website on Tumblr titled “KEEP RESISTING.” The Keep Resisting website was subtitled “a searchable, publicly-accessible database of police officers, crown prosecutors, & justices responsible for eroding civil liberties in Canada.” The contents of the website were organized under seven tabs, including “cops,” “crowns” and “justices.” The “Bad Crowns” tab named Ontario and Quebec prosecutors, with Ms. Guo’s descriptions of alleged violations and examples which she believed illustrated that the prosecutors had failed to exercise their discretion by failing to withdraw charges against accused persons or failing to proceed with charges against the police. The “Bad Cops” tab named 49 police officers from various regions in Ontario and Quebec. Six names were hyperlinked to further information. The “Bad Judges” tab named two judges (one in Ontario, the other a then judge of the Federal Court) without further explanation.

There was reflection since these events

Since 2016, Ms. Guo has continued to use social media, but she has not repeated the same pattern of conduct that gave rise to the concerns in 2015.

Ms. Guo took a break from her articles in 2016. In March 2016, Angela Sordi, a non-practising lawyer and certified executive coach, provided a letter to the Law Society in which she wrote that she had been retained to improve Ms. Guo’s “professional conduct” and to build her “effective communication skills.” Ms. Guo has advised that she attended coaching sessions with Ms. Sordi for several months in 2016 and learned many valuable lessons about professionalism.

Conclusion

In July 2016, in response to some of Ms. Guo’s Reddit posts that were both defensive and profane, a user who identified herself as a female criminal defence lawyer in Canada provided Ms. Guo with the following advice:

Every once in a while a law student gets on a crusade and tanks their professional reputation through their well meaning arrogance and egotistical abrasiveness. If they are lucky it stays small in an office, or in a classroom. But social media is making this easier and easier to do with the click of a button. Too many students are falling afoul of momentary bad judgement preserved for all time.

Please don’t let this happen to you. It gets in the way of actual change and progress by focusing the spotlight on you rather than on your work which should really speak for itself. The work is important. Respect it and yourself. Pick your battles and fight the good fight.

In hindsight, of course, the advice in the post seems prescient. But at the time, Ms. Guo chose to ignore the very clear warnings that others attempted to provide to her, choosing instead to publicly ramp up the rhetoric (even in the face of complaints to the Law Society) and to belittle or disrespect those with whom she disagreed or who disagreed with her opinions or her approach. In so doing, Ms. Guo risked harming not only her own reputation, but also those of other lawyers and the legal profession generally.

While zealous advocacy is encouraged within the profession, it must not come at the expense of civility. Though challenging authority can be an effective tool for social change, the message should not get lost or mired in ego or invective. It is the work itself that is important, not the person who is delivering the message. At a time when she was less mature, less sensitive, more confrontational and more hostile, Ms. Guo, in responding as she did, showed little appreciation or understanding of these basic tenets of the profession.

 Ms. Guo has learned a very hard lesson in this regard. The past three years have given her the opportunity to look back and to reflect. In response, she has made some real and substantive changes. As described by her therapist, Ms. Guo has been working on patience and understanding, self-regulation and greater emotional awareness. According to Mr. Kaldas, Ms. Guo has demonstrated a keen awareness of the mistakes that she made in the past, and she has been receptive to his endeavours to impart some experiential wisdom to her. She has come to understand that being loud and abrasive does not necessarily equate to being an effective advocate, and that restraint can often prove a useful tool for resolving conflict. She is willing to accept the guidance and support that is available to her from within the larger criminal defence community. She recognizes that personality conflicts are normal, not just within the profession, but in life generally, and that her practice of “naming and shaming” is rarely a useful means of accomplishing her goal of ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard within the legal system. Perhaps most importantly, she is able to recognize the privilege of being a member of the legal profession, and the important role that she will play in ensuring that the public continues to have confidence in the profession.

Given these changes over a sustained period, and as there have been no further reports of episodes of concern, we find that Ms. Guo is presently of good character. Upon completion of the qualifications and other requirements as set out in the Law Society Act, the applicant is eligible to be granted an L1 licence.

(Mike Frisch)