Toronto lawyer Paul Robson compared his treatment by Ontario’s legal regulator to the experiences of Indigenous children in residential schools, Jews under Nazi Germany, and the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests.

But the litany of offensive comments didn’t stop there.

He called a Law Society of Ontario lawyer a “wastrel,” complained that a discipline panel chair should dress more appropriately because this was not a “motorcycle mamma fest or a party at a local pickup joint,” and accused the law society of being an accessory to murder.

Robson does not deny that he made the communications. His defence relied primarily on a diagnosed mental illness as the reason for his behaviour, but this was rejected by a discipline panel of the law society tribunal, which found him guilty of professional misconduct in a decision released last week.

“When taken in their entirety, Mr. Robson’s communications with law society prosecutors, tribunal staff, and panel members are abusive, offensive and unprofessional as alleged,” lawyer Barbara Murchie wrote for the three-member discipline panel.

“They are replete with: demeaning personal comments; derogatory descriptions; unsupported allegations of improper conduct, bias and incompetence.”

Robson declined to comment when reached by the Star. He has had a long and fractious history with the law society, which had revoked his licence in an earlier prosecution, only for an appeal panel to reinstate it while at the same calling Robson out for offensive comments he made in that case.

The appeal panel noted in that case that Robson sent them a letter appearing to call them “f---ers” and also sent them a video of a cat playing dead, saying it depicts what the law society does for access to justice.

He currently retains his licence to practise law, but cannot practise real estate law or operate a trust account. The discipline panel in his most recent case, after finding him guilty of professional misconduct, ordered that a penalty hearing be scheduled. Potential penalties could include a suspension or revocation of Robson’s licence.

The comments that led to the recent professional misconduct finding date back to about 2008, when the law society was prosecuting Robson on allegations that included failing to disclose assets, acquired during bankruptcy, to his trustee in bankruptcy. It was that prosecution that eventually led to Robson’s licence being revoked, and then reinstated on appeal.

In emails in 2008, Robson “repeatedly” told the prosecutor and her co-counsel that they were “incompetent and a disgrace to the society,” and wrote:

“How about I make the both of you a deal? I will give you both a guarded reference in support of your applications to work the drive through windows of the Starbucks of your respective choices.”

During a hearing in November 2011, Robson compared the impact of the discipline proceedings on his family to the impact that residential schools had on Indigenous communities. The hearing panel at the time included an Indigenous adjudicator.

“It is an absolutely ludicrous, ludicrous, monstrously wrong decision that has taken a horrific toll on lots of people, including my family, me and my children — most importantly, my children. The residential schools have nothing on what this court has done to me, now — my children that is,” he said, according to the discipline decision.

And then, in an email to the panel later that day:

“Is it that native children by virtue of their ‘special status’ stand in a different light from my children who have been taken from me by virtue of a (sic) monstrously unjust decisions by the courts and the law society.”

In a 2013 hearing, he compared his situation “to that of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany,” according to the discipline decision.

Later that year, in correspondence with opposing counsel on a case he had been working on, Robson said: “My clients have instructed me to use a colloquial expression: F--- Off.”

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That lawyer later complained to the law society.

Robson’s licence was revoked in 2014, and then restored by an appeal panel several months later. The offensive communications continued.

“In his communications with the law society and the tribunal in 2014, while he was suspended and even after his licence was restored, Mr. Robson continued to complain, threaten, demean and abuse. He also regularly alleged bias,” according to the discipline decision released last week.

In emails to a client in 2014, Robson wrote that the law society was “very similar to Catholic priests being able to get away with raping young boys,” and that it was a “monster from a Stephen King novel, a rabid putrefying SARS like scum undetected and allowed to migrate because of lack of proper oversight.”

The law society chose not to reprosecute Robson after the appeal panel restored his licence in 2014, but the regulator continued to investigate him in 2015 for other allegations, including failing to pay a mediator’s account.

In November of that year, he complained about the clothes being worn by the chair of the hearing panel.

“The event was not a motorcycle mamma fest or a party at a local pickup joint. Kindly ensure that the panellists dress appropriately in the future,” he said, according to the discipline decision, which then said Robson’s complaint was dismissed as “unfounded.”

Robson has been diagnosed with Stress Response Syndrome and a major depressive disorder, and receives treatment, the discipline panel noted in its recent decision. But the panel said it found no evidence that Robson’s mental health issues prevented him from meeting his obligations as a lawyer during the period in question.

Robson testified at the discipline hearing and the panel found him to be, for the most part, “respectful and acted in a manner appropriate to a hearing before the tribunal.” He admitted to the communications, “but took no responsibility for their tone or content.”

He apologized for some statements and said in retrospect he would not have made them, but also “did not resile from some behaviour and comments,” the discipline panel wrote.

“He maintained that he was justified in comparing his treatment by the law society to the treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools, to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany and to the abuse of young boys by Catholic priests,” the discipline panel said.

“He could not, even after his diagnosis and treatment, admit that his situation did not compare.”