Published October 22, 2026 · Nova Scotia Legal Resource editorial
The documents on this page reproduce redacted excerpts of Victoria Rees’s testimony during the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society disciplinary hearing involving Lyle Howe. Rees, then Director of Professional Responsibility, was cross-examined by Howe about her investigative role, the treatment of complaints, her relationship with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the handling of information placed before the Complaints Investigation Committee (CIC).
Rather than ask readers to work through more than one hundred pages without context, we have paired the documents with a guide to the exchanges and their original transcript page numbers. The page references below refer to the page numbers printed on the hearing transcript, not necessarily the PDF viewer’s page count.
Read the redacted transcript excerpts
Part 1 — transcript pp. 256–329
View or download Part 1 (redacted PDF)
This excerpt includes the end of Rees’s direct examination and the beginning of Howe’s cross-examination. Topics include the Society’s investigative discretion, information sent to the CIC, advice about filing complaints, and Rees’s relationship with Martin Herschorn.
Part 2 — transcript pp. 414–480
View or download Part 2 (redacted PDF)
This excerpt continues the December 2015 cross-examination. It addresses the Society’s description of its complaint-handling process, what reached the CIC concerning Howe’s criminal trial, and an exchange over Michelle James’s account of gathering information about Howe.
Scope of the available documents: These are the two supplied redacted excerpts, not an assertion that every day and page of Rees’s cross-examination is reproduced here. Separate working charts refer to January 2016 testimony, but those pages are not included in these two PDFs. Additional verified records can be added and clearly identified when made available.
Where to find the principal exchanges
1. Rees’s role in the investigation — pp. 284–285
Howe asked whether Rees carried out an investigation, whether she could resolve some matters before they reached the CIC, and whether she determined what information was put before the committee. Rees agreed she had those functions. She also acknowledged a role in compiling information for the hearing panel.
At the same time, she drew a distinction between preparing and presenting information and the CIC’s formal decisions. She said the committee made the decisions about what matters proceeded to hearing. The distinction is central to any fair account of her authority.
2. Objectivity and perceived impartiality — pp. 309–325
Rees agreed that objectivity and impartiality were important to her investigative and discretionary role (pp. 309–310).
Howe then introduced a September 2013 email exchange in which Rees had discussed her concern that he might perceive her advice about Crown attorneys differently because Martin Herschorn, the Director of Public Prosecutions, was her husband. Rees acknowledged both the marriage and that she had not previously told Howe of it (pp. 317–318).
Her explanation matters: she said she was directing him to the appropriate public office, not privately steering him toward her spouse. She said she knew her advice was not motivated by the relationship, while recognizing the possibility that Howe might perceive it that way (p. 323).
3. Complaints raised by Howe and Michelle James — pp. 313–327
Howe questioned Rees about the difference between her advice when he wanted to raise a complaint about another lawyer and her response when Crown attorney Michelle James raised concerns about him.
On p. 327, Rees agreed that she discouraged Howe from filing a complaint and that she did not discourage James. She also accepted that the number of complaints already made against Howe was relevant to her approach. Earlier in the exchange, she explained that she generally discouraged lawyers from escalating interpersonal conflicts into formal complaints, and she told James that supporting information was needed if James wished to file a complaint.
This is evidence of a difference in the advice Rees gave in the instances examined. It is not, standing alone, proof of why she did so or a legal finding of unlawful discrimination.
4. Reactive complaints, active investigation — pp. 414–416
Rees said the Society did not go looking for complaints without a reason. Where a complaint or concern came to its attention, however, she said the Society could investigate and obtain additional information. She explicitly distinguished looking for information from looking for complaints.
Readers evaluating Howe’s broader concern about heightened scrutiny should preserve that distinction. Investigating an existing concern can be consistent with a reactive complaints model; the separate question is whether investigative judgment was exercised consistently and proportionately.
5. What the Complaints Investigation Committee actually received — pp. 421–424
Howe challenged Rees’s explanation about information arising from his criminal-trial transcript. After reviewing an April 2015 memorandum that she had prepared for the CIC, Rees confirmed that the memorandum went to the committee, although Howe’s April 13 letter did not go to the committee as a separate document.
She also explained that the committee sought legal advice on possible conduct issues and ultimately did not proceed with charges based on that material. It would therefore be inaccurate to write that Rees admitted filing a formal complaint against Howe over his trial testimony. The narrower and supported point is that the underlying issue was communicated to the CIC through her memorandum.
6. Michelle James’s September 2013 memorandum — pp. 473–476
Howe questioned Rees about whether she had instructed Michelle James to seek information from other Crown attorneys. Rees said she had not directed James to collect complaints; rather, she told James that if a complaint was intended to reflect other people's concerns, those concerns needed evidentiary support.
Howe then brought Rees to a September 24, 2013 memorandum by James that described the canvassing as being undertaken at the Society’s behest. Asked whether she agreed with that characterization, Rees answered that she did not (pp. 475–476).
The record therefore contains two different characterizations. Rees did not admit directing a canvass, and the memorandum’s wording does not by itself resolve that disagreement.
How to read a hearing transcript responsibly
In a cross-examination, a lawyer or self-represented party can put propositions to a witness that the witness disputes. A question is not proof of the proposition it contains. The witness’s full answer, any follow-up, the exhibit being discussed, and any ruling of the hearing panel may all change what the exchange establishes.
For that reason, this guide makes four distinctions: what Howe asked, what Rees accepted, what she disputed, and what a decision-maker ultimately found. Where possible, each topic is tied to a transcript page so readers can examine its immediate context.
Legal and institutional context
The Howe disciplinary hearing ultimately resulted in professional-misconduct and professional-incompetence findings and disbarment in 2017. Howe argued that his treatment was affected by racial discrimination. Those allegations were contested, and the disciplinary panel rejected his ultimate Charter claim.
The Society later acknowledged systemic discrimination within its organization and the wider legal profession. Its 2024 acceptance of Regaining Trust: The Ruck Report provides relevant institutional context, but does not establish that every act questioned in the Howe hearing was discriminatory. Likewise, the Human Rights Commission’s 2026 referral of two complaints for independent adjudication is not a finding of liability.
Read the Victoria Rees overview
Read the full analysis of the December 2015 exchanges
Sources
- Redacted Victoria Rees cross-examination, NSBS v. Lyle Howe, December 2015, Part 1, transcript pp. 256–329.
- Redacted Victoria Rees cross-examination, NSBS v. Lyle Howe, December 2015, Part 2, transcript pp. 414–480.
- Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, Regaining Trust: The Ruck Report, October 29, 2024.
- Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Boards of Inquiry information.
Publication note: These are supplied redacted versions of testimony at a public professional-disciplinary hearing. Client-identifying information has been removed. If this archive is expanded, each added source should be labeled by date, transcript-page range and redaction status.