[7][10], In 2011 Henein's client John Magno received a twelve-year sentence in connection with an arson resulting in a death and one of the largest fires in Toronto's history "forcing the evacuation of 50 nearby homes on Danforth Avenue and requiring the services of more than 170 firefighters. Ill have a fair fight with you, thats not a problem. The answer to Heneins critics may, in fact, be hanging at home on her living room wall: a neon sculpture in the colours of the rainbow that spells out the words, You Can Have It All.. Ontario getting hundreds of millions in equalization means the program isn't serving its purpose, The fuss over Prince Harrys memoir is, absurdly, a sign the monarchy is doing its job, Crown corporation CEOs are underpaid, actually, Ontario looks to private clinics and the B.C. That happens not just in this case, but each and every single day.thats something we should be extraordinarily proud of. I know who I am, I know what my beliefs are. What did it feel like personally? MARIE HENEIN: Well, as a criminal lawyer, youre always an outsider. Two years ago when Scott Hutchison, a respected former crown attorney, joined her as a named partner, she hired an advertising agency to design a campaign that would show Henein Hutchison was no ordinary criminal law firm. She is known for being the most popular sought-after defense lawyer in the country. From their married life, the couple is blessed with two talented sons. Thanks, Marie, for this fascinating conversation, and congratulations on the book. Im going to focus a moment on criminal justice. He originally consulted Brian Heller, a highly respected but lower-profile member of the criminal bar, as well as Neil Rabinovitch, a civil litigation specialist at Dentons Canada, the global giant behind Ghomeshis widely criticized and short-lived lawsuit against the CBC. It would influence me not to take it at all, actually., The amount of scrutiny has been extraordinary and crushing for Ghomeshi, she said. Graceland was left to Lisa Marie the King of Rock and Roll's only child as part of her inheritance in a trust that dissolved on her 25th birthday in 1993, at which point she became the . Marie understands that she is marketing a product just like Nike is, says a friend. He loved the oral advocacy part, she says. I think people dont understand that my criticism is of Conservatives and Liberals. Hiring her as his research assistant, he concluded she was a natural for that wing of the bar where bravado counted for more than good grades. She is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is one of the founders of the Court of Appeal's Appellate Duty Counsel Program. What intrigued her was that Greenspan too had been an outlier, a scrap dealers son from Niagara Falls, who stumped the country in a crusade against the death penalty with a showmans flair. TORONTO (November 3, 2022) Canadian charity The Shoe Project has launched its annual online auction and among the 50+ items up for grabs are Louboutin and Yves Saint Laurent shoes from prominent litigator, Marie Henein. Alan Young arranged for her to co-teach a course with him at Osgoode and hired her to help with an appeal in a sensational drug case, reducing 60 volumes of transcripts from 100 witnesses in a year-long trial to a coherent summary of facts, known in legal jargon as a factum. There isnt. The woman known for her strategic savvy had no office, no clients and no savings; when she did find loft space on King Street West, she had to borrow the first and last months rent from her parents. [4] In 2002, Henein left to open Henein and Associates. In this final instalment of our interview, editor-at-large Sean Speer speaks with Henein about being disinvited from high schools and university campuses and the chronic lack of leadership stifling our society. That is across the board. At 50, she looks a decade younger, a vision in black chic perched on $1,500 leopard-patterned Louis Vuitton pumps. We can listen, we can make decisions, and we can change minds. I have never seen anybody with more naked confidence in a courtroom, says Martha McCarthy, the president of the Advocates Society, who recently called on Henein to assist with a complex case. Darren Calabrese/THE CANADIAN PRESS. "The Jian Ghomeshi Case: A System on Trial". But no, not her. degree in 1991. Law firm culture has been slow to change, concedes Laurie Pawlitza, the societys former treasurer. [14] The trial lasted eight days. What does it say about the lawyers that are standing beside victims? The result was a photo shoot that might have been orchestrated by Vanity Fair. So, I saw a bit of the underbelly in Ottawa. That is what bothers me. Thats not a tiny mole. Central to defence lawyer Marie Henein's well-crafted imagery is the . Its where theyre getting their votes. [2] She is a partner of Henein Hutchison LLP, a law firm in Toronto . [8][9], In 2009, Henein represented Bradley Harrison at the Supreme Court of Canada. He and Riley, . For Henein, the whole debate is irrelevant, an utter waste of time. Henein, who has often appeared on panels with Edelson, is no stranger to those tactics. She had just lopped off her shoulder-length locks in a punk cut, and he went ballistic. It wasnt the public crying out for it. Working late one night, Henein found her colleague Alison Wheeler distraught that a prospective client, convicted of manslaughter and grappling with mental illness, had been refused Legal Aid; he was planning to argue his own appeala daunting prospect even for those with a law degree. You can visit her firms website www.hhllp.ca and contact her through it. In hers, Bryant was not the cocky aggressor; he was the unwitting victim of a troubled man who had clashed with drivers before. Its astounding. On June 11, 2019 Marie Henein retired as the chair of the Pro Bono Inmate Appeals Program ("PIAP") after twenty years of service. Glen Jennings, the soft-spoken son of a United Church minister, was instantly smitten. Thats one of her assets. Stuffed, life-size animals peered out from a tropical forest that Henein had trucked in, and African bird calls squawked over the sound system. She can think five, six, 10 moves down the chess game.. The bleak lessons of the Ghomeshi trial I think that politicians have forgotten that their role is to lead, no matter what part of the political spectrum youre on. model to clear surgical backlog, Ontario's health-care reforms are a sign of Left-Right policy convergence. Most cases, Henein responded, are hinged on credibility and circumstantial evidence. Talking about her education, Marie went to the St. Josephs Morrow Park Catholic Secondary School. I would alienate men., It was one of the few times in her life when she was warned to tone down her behavioura message she has adamantly refused to heed. I cant talk about it, she says, fighting off tears. Poster Girl. Seven years later, the numbers have barely budged. She pushed herself through her kids younger years, working at home virtually non-stop through her maternity leaves. "[11][12], In November 2014, former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi hired Henein to defend him. "Maybe some of these people at D.C.F., they . Her supportive father named Joseph was employed at the pharmacy. On sports pages, he was depicted as a bullying Svengali whose hold over his young acolytes was so creepy that one, former NHL player Mike Danton, had gone to jail for trying to hire a hit man to kill him. A third testicle would be hard to miss., Seven years after his acquittal, Frost still speaks of Henein with wary awe. She recalls being singled out in her Catholic grade school, St. Leonards, and called ugly names. In 1982, Ghomeshis memoir of growing up as the child of Iranian immigrants in the citys northern suburbs, he writes poignantly of life as an outsider, acutely aware that his skin was not an acceptable shade of pale. At the end of her articling stint, he offered her a permanent job, but she had already been accepted to the master of laws program at Columbia University in New York. I mean, they cant pass nationalized daycare effectively in Canada. It was sort of an international incident at the schooleveryone knew about it, Nemchin recalls. Henein Hutchison LLP 34 The former Eddie Greenspan protge and current lawyer for Jian Ghomeshi runs the hottest criminal defence firm in Toronto. Shes so good that she can get away with it, he notes. That was her mantra when I was growing up: You must never, ever depend on a man for anything, she says. But one of the things that Ive often discussed with her is, quite simply, the economics of failing to engage in climate change and technology and why politicians discuss environmental issues as a moral value rather than an economic one. He hired Marie to represent him in the court and defend him against the charges he was accused of. During her young age, her family moved to Lebanon and later to Vancouver. As one of the most respected and feared criminal lawyers in the country, she has become not only his voice but his last best hope against the possibility of a life sentence in prison. Were under siege. Marie Henein is the smartest, toughest, most sought-after defence lawyer in the city. In religion class, where most students chose heartwarming essay topics, Henein argued the merits of abortion and premarital sex. We were not the pretty, popular girls, Henein says. Henein herself makes no secret of the fact that she lives for the cut and thrust of a trial. The answer lay in the one file Greenspan had finally allowed her to take, a Legal Aid case in a murder that had already outraged the city with its wanton brutality. Despite that pre-emptive caution, Henein showed up to emcee the annual awards gala for the countrys in-house corporate counselpossibly the most staid members of the legal communityin knee-high, lace-up dominatrix boots. But to disinvite someone because you feel that a high school or university student cant bear a discussion about the justice system, and what a defence lawyers role is, is something out of Brave New World. To make her dreams come true, she went to Osgoode Hall Law School and completed her Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.) She defies the real-life sexist messaging given womenthat they should take up as little space as possible (the Platonic female ideal being the impossible size 00), that they not control the. For Henein, the timing was not exactly propitious. But what she remembers best about the case is walking into Greenspans office on the eve of their departure for Halifax. He is also of the same profession at the law firm Gowlings and is heading the white-collar defense and investigations group. SEAN SPEER: If you think about the big issues facing the countryincluding demographic pressures, our place in the world, and climate changethe risk is that in the absence of such leadership, we succumb to inaction. Within months, he was dead. For your client, its his life., Of all her cases with Greenspan, the biggest media sensation was the 1998 trial of former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan, charged with 18 counts of sexual assault. Her client Daniel Weiz was defended by Henein and was successfully acquitted of the charges of killing a teen named Dmitri Baranovski. To the medias dismay, her client is nowhere in sight. It just makes me rear up a little bit more because I dont like unfair play. It was. Finally Joseph Henein relented, and the family set down roots in Toronto just after Maries fourth birthday. "[4] The National Post called her the "most high profile criminal defence lawyer in the country. MARIE HENEIN: Yes. None of it deals with the real issues the criminal law needs to deal with. Contents 1 Early life 2 Education 3 Legal career 4 Notable cases 5 Personal life 6 References 7 External links Early life [ edit] Henein was born in Cairo, Egypt, to Lebanese Maronite parents. While most legal firms opt for the reassuring patina of wood panelling and landscapes, Heneins stark private office features a giant photo of a voodoo doctor named Baron Samedi strutting gleefully through a New Orleans cemetery in top hat and skull mask. As a criminal lawyer, youre always an outsider. The job that Im doing is part of the justice system. Another case in 2008 of hockey agent David Frost, Henein defended him by eliminating the charges of sexual exploitation that he was accused. I cant believe you did this, he roared. On one blog, Osgoode Hall professor Susan Drummond argues that criminal lawyers not only have a duty to their clients, they also have a larger duty to the justice system as a whole; by whacking the complainant in sexual assault cases, she says, they threaten to bring the entire system into disrepute. And I can lose. We never did give in., Now a lawyer with Ontarios Ministry of the Environment, Nemchin recounts the incident as a feisty stand for freedom of expression, but Henein remembers it for another reason entirely. It is not the medium that is at fault it is the consumer. In those years, one sidekick provided distraction, her mothers youngest brother, Sami. ADVERTISEMENT Diana Davison Montreal QC Now Henein presides over one of the hottest criminal law boutiques in the city, a ten-member firm that has also attracted former deputy attorney general Murray Segal as counsel, and some hail her as the likely heir to the superstar mantle of Eddie Greenspan. Michael Bryant recalls Henein pausing in mid-conference whenever one of her boys called, instantly transformed from merciless inquisitor to solicitous major domo solving a domestic crisis. The first trial of Ghomeshi began on February 1, 2016. The former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi was charged with sexual assault. [4], Henein has developed a reputation in Toronto as one of the most "respected and feared criminal lawyers in the country. I cant focus on that. All she knew about the profession she had gleaned from reading about Eddie Greenspan, the superstar defender whose CBC series, The Scales of Justice, recapped famous trials in a way that made criminal law seem both noble and enthralling. Toronto Life is a registered trademark of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited. Heneins sharpest dig was in response to political and legal figures who quickly supported social media campaigns including #IBelieveSurvivors. She grabbed her (LL.M.) We dont want that., Related:Exclusive: Lucy DeCoutere on the Ghomeshi disaster, Shehas an unwavering belief in the Canadianjustice system. But recent cases have brought you to Ottawa and exposed you to the countrys bureaucratic and political culture. It was right out of Twelve Angry Men, Peter Henein recalls. Henein is no stranger to famous clients. But I dont like unfair fights. By Anne Kingston March 30, 2016. According to the narrative Henein developed for the case, Frosts accusers were small-town girls, once besotted with his visiting players, who were now colluding to spin accusations they hoped would bring them a payoff. Henein has no patience for questions about how she managed it all. Theres no way you could pass something like that. After one woman testified shed been coerced into giving Frost a blow job, Henein inquired whether she had noticed any medical anomalies in those close quarters. Very angry at the limited options for her., From her earliest years, her mother impressed on her the imperative of defying gender expectations. She made no secret of the fact she was star-struck, announcing to a friend in her freshman year at the University of Toronto that she intended to work with Greenspan. Jian Ghomeshi makes his way through a mob of media with his lawyer Marie Henein at a Toronto court on November 26, 2014. At the CLAs first womens conference in Ottawa last spring, Henein doled out helpful hints to young lawyers on how to build their careers, but Jessyca Greenwood, a 31-year-old with her own Toronto firm, was puzzled that Henein never once mentioned the problem that confounded Greenwood daily: how to manage her fledgling practice while raising two toddlers. From the first, friends characterize their relationship as a father-daughter dynamiccompelling, complicated and volatile. Its a perception that Henein knows all too well. Heneins name was on every list but seldom at the top; his male friends worried she might be too aggressive in a case where he was already being pilloried in the press. "[6], In 1998, with Greenspan, Henein defended former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan on sexual-misconduct charges. And it was very apparent in Ottawa that that is how it is. Within the year, she was back at their firm as a junior associate. She has also been serving in the Canadian Criminal Cases as its Associate Editor. sat down with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, Ghomeshi trial: Everything wrong with sexual assault law, In their words: Protestors on the Ghomeshi trial. She dressed in an eccentric punky way that made it clear she was not like other students, he recalls. She convinced the other to mark all the locations on a crime scene diagram where he had misled police while she spat out the words, Lie, lie, lie, in a relentless tattoo. Your job as a leader is to get information out to the public to convey to people why youre making the decisions that youre making and to bring them along with you. Now she intends to do the same for Jian Ghomeshi, even if it. Marie Henein Net Worth & Basic source of earning is being a successful Canadian Lawyer. But we stood together. When she returned, there was no opening waiting at his firm. Big., Some lawyers only take cases they know they can win, but Henein never turns down a client. I believe that if you talk to the public, because I have talked to them about this issue, they engage with you and they want to know. While some critics sniff that it smacks of an ad for an HBO legal series, within the criminal bar it has set Henein apart. Suddenly, the door to Courtroom 506 opens and the media contingent rushes inside to fill its scant half-dozen rows. Those statistics echo a larger crisis in the profession: although women still make up more than half of all law school graduates, an alarming number are cashing out after only five to seven years in private practice, just when their careers ought to be approaching liftoff. Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.[16][17]. Company Limited would be hard to miss., seven years later, the whole debate is irrelevant an... 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