David Porter is a partner in our Litigation Group in Toronto. Since joining the firm, he has practised in the area of criminal defence and professional discipline defence and prosecution.
Mr. Porter has appeared as counsel on numerous criminal trials in the Superior Court of Justice and appeals in criminal matters in the Ontario Court of Appeal. He has acted for the Criminal Lawyers' Association (Ontario) in the Supreme Court of Canada. He has also been engaged in both prosecuting and defending professionals before disciplinary tribunals. Mr. Porter has frequently appeared as trial and appellate counsel for self-regulating professional colleges in Ontario.
Since 2006, Mr. Porter has been recognized in Best Lawyers in Canada as a leading practitioner in criminal defence.
Mr. Porter has been recognized as an international leader in the defence of white collar criminal cases in the International Who's Who of Business Crime Defence Lawyers 2010, and in the Who's Who Legal Directory for 2010 in the list of outstanding counsel in the area of business crime defence. In 2010, he was successful in his defence of a senior executive charged with fraud in a prosecution of former executives of Royal Group Technologies Inc. He is currently engaged in the defence of a former senior executive of Nortel Networks facing charges of fraud in relation to the preparation of Nortel's financial statements.
He has been asked to participate in numerous continuing education programs dealing with criminal law and professional discipline proceedings.
He was a member of the National Executive of the Criminal Justice Subsection of the Canadian Bar Association for 2010-2011, and currently sits as the Canadian Bar Association member on the "Steering Committee on Justice Efficiencies and Access to the Justice System", a national committee of judges, Crown counsel and defence counsel. From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Porter was a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he taught trial advocacy.
He received his BA from Queen's University, his MA from the University of Sussex and his LLB from the University of Toronto. Mr. Porter was called to the Ontario bar in 1983.