Who is Daniel Brown, defence lawyer in the Hockey Canada sex-assault trial?

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Daniel Brown is on a short list of criminal lawyers in Canada that a regular person who follows the news might recognize.

He’s frequently quoted in the media as a legal expert and, among lawyers, is generally regarded as one of the country’s most skilled trial litigators. Mr. Brown literally wrote the book (with former Crown attorney Jill Witkin, who is now a judge) on how to prosecute and defend sexual assault cases in Canada.

But last week, he made headlines across the country for other reasons.

A juror in the sexual assault trial of five former members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team accused Mr. Brown and his co-counsel of bullying the jury. The lawyers are representing one of the accused players in the high-profile trial, which is being heard in London, Ont.

In a note handed to Justice Maria Carroccia on Thursday, juror 11 alleged: “Multiple jury members feel we are being judged and made fun of by lawyers Brown and Hilary Dudding. Every day when we enter the courtroom they observe us, whisper to each other and turn to each other and laugh as if they are discussing our appearance. This is unprofessional and unacceptable.”

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On Friday, Justice Carroccia said she had no choice but to dismiss the jury — again — as it was clear that at least some members may be biased toward the defence. (In late April, Justice Carroccia declared a mistrial, after Ms. Dudding and someone from the first jury bumped into each other at a local food market. The juror had concerns the interaction was inappropriate. Ms. Dudding said she made a reflexive apology in the moment.)

The trial will now be heard by judge alone — a change that Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham initially opposed over concerns it would prejudice the prosecution’s case, as they had been presenting evidence for three weeks in a way that was designed for a jury, not a judge.

For his part, Mr. Brown emphatically denied the juror’s allegation — Justice Carroccia also told the court she had not witnessed any problematic behaviour — but the controversy has put Mr. Brown, Ms. Dudding and their firm, Daniel Brown Law, in the spotlight.

It’s a place the media savvy Mr. Brown has previously used to his advantage.

He was a 26-year-old articling student the first time he made national news, in 2004.

The Queen’s University law graduate was working at a firm called Pinkofskys — it’s now called Rusonik, O’Connor, Robbins, Ross, & Angelini, LLP — when one of the firm‘s senior lawyers was nabbed for making an illegal left-hand turn in Toronto’s financial district. Mr. Brown convinced a justice of the peace that the ticket was bogus, because the left-hand turn sign had not been written in both English and French.

The early years of Mr. Brown’s career coincided with a period of frequent shootings and gang violence in Toronto. Much of his work from this time involved drugs, weapons and murder cases.

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Then, in 2013, Mr. Brown found himself in the middle of a controversy that was covered around the world, when he took on a client named Mohamed Siad.

Mr. Siad had been arrested in the Project Traveller police investigation — a probe targeting the Dixon City Bloods street gang. It turned out Mr. Siad had filmed then-Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine and then tried to the sell the video for $100,000 to the Toronto Star and Gawker.

Mr. Brown’s star continued to rise over the next decade and he struck out on his own. Today, his downtown Toronto boutique firm employs about a dozen lawyers. He later became a president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA).

John Struthers, himself a past president of the CLA, has known Mr. Brown for years and worked with him as co-counsel in a murder trial heard by a jury about a decade ago.

“He was a younger counsel then and I was more senior. He did very well,” Mr. Struthers said. “He’s dedicated to the justice system. He’s dedicated to the law. He’s dedicated to his clients. And he’s an excellent lawyer. And on sexual assault cases, he’s probably the leader in Canada.”

Mr. Struthers said the London juror’s claims about Mr. Brown and his co-counsel don’t make sense.

“The last thing a defence lawyer would try to do is alienate the jury for any reason. There is no possibility that they were making fun of jurors. Literally no possibility,” he said.

Mr. Struthers said that the frequent protests outside the courtroom, which have included insults being hurled at the accused players and the defence lawyers, could also have played a role in how the juror viewed Mr. Brown.

Defence lawyer Hussein Aly, who worked with Mr. Brown at Pinkofskys and described him as a “tremendous mentor,” said that he’s sure whatever happened in the London courtroom was the result of a misinterpretation.

Mr. Aly said strange things can sometimes happen with juries.

For example, he remembers handling a sexual assault case in Toronto, in which the jury and lawyers were using the same parking lot. One day, after the proceedings, he drove away with his client, and ended up exiting the lot at the same time as a juror. That juror then wrote a note to the judge questioning whether the defence team had been following them.

“That’s an example of a completely innocuous interaction,” said Mr. Aly, who is now with the Aly Amjad Law Group.

To his recollection, the judge ended up dismissing that specific juror, but the rest continued to hear the case and his client was acquitted.

(In the London case, Justice Carroccia rejected a request from the Crown that could have resulted in only one or two jurors being dismissed. Doing so would have meant conducting an “inquiry” of the jury — questioning each member about their feelings toward the defence — which she felt may make the problem of potential bias worse.)