Law student has passion, civility not so much
It was just three days ago that “Dawn Lee” posted a photo of herself on Tumblr, contorting into the table top yoga position. Naked. While simultaneously performing fellatio.
With the caption: “I’m just your regular acrobatic hooker.”
An escort who charges $300 an hour for her services as a self-described “bedroom nymph.” Doubtless she’s worth every cent.
A bright young woman, too, having made the dean’s list at prestigious universities.
And this close to being called to the bar.
Not the kind that serves booze. The legal bar.
“Dawn Lee” is the workinggirl pseudonym of Nadia Jia Guo, Canadian-born daughter of Chinese parents and aspiring criminal defense lawyer.
On Thursday, Guo appeared before the Law Society of Ontario for a “good character hearing.”
None of the aforementioned conduct has a damn thing to do with it.
As, indeed, the bang-forbucks wasn’t even addressed by the three-headed Law Society tribunal hearing, although the raunchy details are flat-out boasted on Guo’s social media platforms.
The good character hearing focused on Guo’s behaviour while she worked as an articling student from July to December 2015, and complaints filed with the Law Society by some members.
Among Guo’s code of conduct infractions: That she leaked confidential disclosure information about a case from a private lawyer-to-lawyer Criminal Lawyers’ Association website onto her widely read Twitter account and responded “uncivilly” to a pair of lawyers who’d urged her to knock it off, according to the agreed statement of facts; that she’d once been arrested (but not charged) for giving the finger to staff at a civil court clerk’s office, ticked off after waiting some four hours to be served; that she’d “scooped” another lawyer’s client from a courthouse, which is not allowed; that she’d tweeted about her “girl crush” on a female judge, her former professor at Osgoode Hall Law School; that she’d made stroppy remarks on social media about a Crown counsel (identifying that person by name) and suggesting “the entire administration of justice is corrupt,” and that she’d been fired from a law firm where she’d worked as a student five years ago, for wearing “totally inappropriate, ultra-revealing clothing, which made staff uncomfortable.”
Now those are allegations — well, agreed facts — that a law tribunal could sink its teeth into. They are not remotely concerned — it ain’t their lookout — about the sexual moonlighting. That is, presumably, part of Guo’s alternate reality. Robes by day, peel by night.
The petite 28-year-old fidgeted restlessly as defence lawyer Kris Borg-Olivier dove into the ASF, appearing to quiver like a tuning fork from the tip of her tiny ponytail to the bottom of her red-soled pumps (Louboutins), furiously jiggling one foot. Had difficulty walking on those heels, though, galumphing to the witness chair. That ballyhooed dexterity seems to quit at the ankles.
“I started my Twitter just as a way to document things I was going through,” Guo began. This was an entry point to the CLA website issue, in which she shot back at the complainant: “Dude, don’t compare me to yourself. It’s so f---ing insulting.” Also called him a “psychotic f---.”
Definitely a sling wide of the civil and respectful deportment allegedly expected among the lawyerly class.
“I overstepped my bounds a bit and made some catty comments,” Guo conceded.
Everyone on the CLA list saw the exchange. “A lot of people said I was out of line.” But she added: “As a young female in the profession, you’re often told what to do by older men.”
More specifically, as per the riposte, privileged white men.
“I wanted to retain my voice,” Guo explained of her hostile attitude. “But I guess in doing so, I said some things that I shouldn’t have.”
If she had a curl on her forehead, she’d be twirling it.
Guo was full of regrets, appropriately couched, yesterday. Like that thing about girlcrushing on a judge, using the jurist’s first name in a tweet. “I understand now that I shouldn’t be trying to establish a familiarity with a member of the bench.”
As for the Crown she dissed by name, Guo, sounding like the social justice warriors she claims (on social media) to dislike, said she was angry that a significant detail about the accused allegedly being beaten by a cop had been withheld from the public. “I shouldn’t put my personal duty out there. It doesn’t get me anywhere. All I succeeded in doing was ticking people off … Showing respect to senior members of the bar is also important.”
And about that almost-arrest? She’d been trying to file a statement of defence for the lawyer under whom she’d been articling. The set-up involved taking a number to be served and the clerks were just lazing around. Guo confronted a couple of them. “They told me to sit back down. I gave one of them the finger.”
Security was summoned to remove her. Guo demanded to know on what authority he was acting. “I didn’t think I was that disorderly. I wasn’t screaming. I did make a disrespectful gesture.”
That got her ejected, and, she says, knocked to the ground outside when she tried to take a photo of the security guard’s badge number. Meanwhile, her car was being towed.
Again and again, Guo acknowledged, her unwillingness to go meekly has landed her in trouble. But since 2015, she’s been taking sessions with a certified executive coach, found a lawyer-mentor and has been seeing a therapist to address attitude issues. She took a break from the law, but has since completed her articling with another lawyer.
“Obviously, I understand better now how the justice system works. I’ve come to expect that things will take time. I’m working on become a more patient person … less antagonism doing things.”
On the younger version of herself: “If I thought I was in the right, then it was okay for me to say anything. Obviously that approach has failed me. I now go about things with a more reserved approach.”
The “coach,” in particular, has imparted valuable advice: “You can’t take on the world alone. You can’t alienate everybody. It backfired on me.”
See, she was just so frustrated with the sluggish and autocratic judicial system. “Taking things personally, over-compensating for my lack of power in the system. It made me feel insignificant, even though I know I had a lot to offer. I wanted to show the profession that I deserved the respect I wanted.”
That was why, as well, she launched a website onto which she downloaded stories about miscarriages of justice, naming names. “I wanted to bring transparency to the legal system, which I think it needs more of.”
The website still exists, although the look-at-this-stuff links have been removed.
Guo’s character predicament pretty much boils down to this: “I didn’t get the whole civility thing at all.”
More than ever, said Guo, this experience has doubled down her desire to be a lawyer. “I’ve been tested. I’ve had my chance to look back and reflect on it. I definitely would love the chance to practice criminal law, if I get it. It’s my love and my passion.”
Passion to spare, it seems, on that other thing.
From her webpage: “I guess I was destined to be a professional seductress … It wasn’t long before I realized I could be charging men for the pleasure of pleasuring me. Seduction was my first tongue.”
From her Tumblr account: “The following is a non-inclusive list of the different encounters you can experience with me, either in place of a more traditional encounter or in addition to it: Edging, Domination, Roleplay, 420/cannabis-enhanced sessions, Photography, Hot tub dates, Duos, Groups, couples, gangbangs, MMFs/MFMs etc.….”
The tribunal has reserved its decision.