Investigations Counsel

Advice Before the Charge

Most people call a lawyer after they have been charged. By then, the most important decisions in the case have usually already been made, and sometimes quite poorly.

If the police have called you, if an inspector has arrived at your workplace, if a regulator has written to you, or if a Children’s Aid Society worker has knocked on your door, you are in the investigation phase. No charge has been laid. Nothing has been decided. And this is the point at which a lawyer can do the most good for the least money.

Mor Fisher LLP offers investigations counsel on an hourly basis: focused, confidential advice for individuals and businesses who are under investigation but not yet charged. You are not retaining us for a trial. You are retaining us to help you navigate the weeks or months before anyone decides whether there will be a trial at all.

Why the Investigation Phase Matters Most

Once a charge is laid, the file has momentum. A Crown attorney (or other appropriate prosecutor) has screened it, a police officer or investigator has committed to a theory in writing, and your own statement — if you gave one — is locked in. Everything that follows is an argument about a record that already exists.

During the investigation, that record is still being built. That means:

• Statements are optional in most contexts, and permanent in all of them. The single most common way people damage their own case is by explaining themselves to an investigator without advice. You cannot un-say it.
• Evidence that helps you disappears on a schedule. Surveillance footage is overwritten. Text messages are deleted. Witnesses forget, move, and change their minds. Nobody is preserving the material that helps you unless someone is instructed to.
• The charging decision is a decision — and decisions can be influenced. Investigators and prosecutors exercise judgment about whether there is enough evidence and whether a prosecution is in the public interest. That judgment can sometimes be addressed before it is exercised.
• Parallel processes are running. A criminal investigation frequently runs alongside a regulatory investigation, an employer’s internal process, an insurer’s inquiry, or a child protection file. Each one can feed the others. Handling them as separate problems is how people get hurt.

What We Do as Investigations Counsel

1. Advise You Before You Speak to Anyone

We explain, for your specific situation, what you are actually obliged to do and what you are not. That answer is different depending on who is asking.

A police officer investigating an offence generally cannot compel you to answer questions. A regulator operating under a statute that compels answers is in an entirely different position — and in some regimes, refusing to answer is itself an offence. A child protection worker is different again. Knowing which situation you are in, before you respond, is essential. Our guide to whether you should give a statement to the police explains the rights involved.

2. Deal With the Investigator on Your Behalf

In many cases we become the point of contact. That ends the pressure of unexpected phone calls and doorstep conversations, and it means every communication is deliberate rather than improvised. It also signals, early, that the file will be handled properly.

3. Preserve the Evidence That Helps You

We identify what exists, what will be lost, and what needs to be secured now — video, phone records, financial documents, site conditions, training records, messages. This is time-sensitive work and it is frequently the difference between a defence and a regret.

4. Make Pre-Charge Submissions

Where it is appropriate, we put your position to the investigator or the prosecuting authority before a charging decision is made — in writing, with supporting material. Not every file is suited to this, and it is not without risk, so it is a strategic decision we make with you rather than a default.

5. Manage the Parallel Files

Where a regulatory investigation, a discipline process, an employment investigation and a police investigation are running at once, we coordinate the approach across all of them so that solving one problem does not create another.

The Investigations We Handle

Criminal Investigations

Police contact before charges, requests for a statement, search warrants and production orders executed on your home, business, devices or accounts, and cases where you have been told you are “a person of interest”. See our criminal practice areas for the specific offences we defend.

Regulatory and Workplace Investigations

Ministry of Labour inspections and workplace incidents under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, environmental investigations by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, securities investigations by the Ontario Securities Commission, CRA criminal investigations, and commercial vehicle and transport enforcement.

Regulatory investigations carry a particular trap: many regulatory statutes compel answers and document production in ways the criminal law does not, while the answers you give may end up in a penal prosecution. That tension is legally technical and genuinely consequential, and it is the single best reason to get advice before your first meeting.

Professional and Licensing Investigations

Investigations by regulatory colleges and licensing bodies — health professions, accounting, real estate, mortgage brokerage, insurance, and law. These often run alongside a criminal matter, and what you say in one can surface in the other.

Child Protection (CAS) Investigations

A Children’s Aid Society investigation is not a criminal proceeding, but it frequently runs in parallel with one, and information moves between them. Families are routinely asked to agree to safety plans, voluntary agreements and interviews without understanding what those commitments mean later.

We advise parents and caregivers on the process, on what a society can and cannot do at each stage, and on how to engage constructively while understanding the consequences. Our advice is never to obstruct a child protection investigation — it is to go into it informed.

Internal and Corporate Investigations

For businesses: advice on whether and how to investigate internally, preserving privilege, instructing employees properly, document holds, and deciding what to do with what you find. See White Collar & Corporate Defence.

How the Retainer Works

Investigations counsel is billed hourly, not as a flat fee, because the work is defined by what the investigation does rather than by a fixed set of court steps. Many engagements are short — a consultation, a letter, and a plan. Some run for months.

We will tell you at the outset what we think the realistic range is, and we will tell you if we think you do not need a lawyer yet. If the matter later results in a charge, the work already done carries forward directly into the defence, and we will discuss a fee arrangement for the prosecution at that point.

Everything you tell us is protected by solicitor-client privilege from the first conversation, whether or not you ultimately retain us.

What This Is Not

It is not a guarantee that no charge will be laid. Many investigations end in charges regardless of what anyone does, and any lawyer who promises otherwise is not being straight with you.

What it does mean is that if a charge comes, it arrives on terms you helped set: without a damaging statement, with the helpful evidence preserved, and with a lawyer who has known the file since the beginning.

Related Resources

• White Collar & Corporate Defence — for businesses and executives facing parallel exposure
• Regulatory Offences — how provincial regulatory prosecutions differ from criminal ones
• Professional Discipline — licensing investigations and self-reporting obligations
• Securities & OSC Enforcement — compelled examinations and pre-charge resolution
• Should I Give a Statement to the Police? — your rights when police ask you to come in, including as a “witness”
• Police Interviews and Your Right to Silence — what happens in the interview room after an arrest
• Your Charter Rights in a Criminal Case — the rights that apply from first contact

If you are under investigation and have not been charged, the most useful call you will make is the early one. Contact Mor Fisher LLP at 705-721-6642 or through our contact page for a confidential discussion about where you stand.