N.S. lawyers have faced ‘racial double standard’ in how they are disciplined, report finds
Report from Human Rights Commission was spurred by complaint from Lyle Howe, a Black Halifax defence lawyer who was disbarred in 2017
Lyle Howe was disbarred in 2017, and has argued for years he is the victim of systemic racism
Blair Rhodes · CBC News
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A report from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission says the organization that regulates the province’s legal profession has a “racial double standard” when it comes to disciplining lawyers, including in the case of Lyle Howe, a Black lawyer who was disbarred in 2017.
Howe has argued for years that he is a victim of systemic racism. The former Halifax defence lawyer filed complaints against the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society with the human rights commission, and an investigator’s report in August 2025 concluded there is merit to his claims.
“The evidence indicates that white lawyers often received more lenient consequences for serious misconduct. Conversely, Black and racialized lawyers faced harsher penalties even for comparable or lesser infractions,” the report reads.
The report recommended the issue be referred to a full board of inquiry.
In February, the chief judge of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court, Perry Borden, named a three-member panel to conduct hearings.
Ordinarily, the process leading up to a board of inquiry is confidential, as is the human rights commission report. But the barristers’ society has asked for a judicial review of the decision to order a hearing.
As part of that review process, the investigator’s report has become a matter of public record.
The findings in her report were welcome news to Howe.
“She found that not only was I discriminated against in the fashion that I described but she went in and investigated in a way that I wouldn't have been able to in terms of looking at how other Black lawyers were dealt with for the last 25 years,” Howe said in an interview earlier this month.
Howe was disbarred by a disciplinary committee of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society after he was found guilty of professional misconduct and professional incompetence following a 60-day hearing. The panel ruled that complaints against Howe were credible. The complaints alleged Howe scheduled himself to be in two or more courts at the same time, poorly documented his clients' files and provided poor quality of service.
The report compared the treatment Howe received from the society with how it dealt with other – mostly white – lawyers.
In particular, the report considered how the society dealt with prominent Cape Breton defence lawyer Nash Brogan. While Howe was disbarred and is still not allowed to practise law, Brogan received a six-month suspension after a disciplinary panel of the society found him guilty of misconduct and incompetence.
The investigator canvassed more than 60 disciplinary cases from 2000 to 2023. The sanctions against Howe were among the harshest of them all.
Howe is accusing the barristers’ society of being hypocritical, asserting that their position toward him is in stark contrast to their reaction to the Ruck report.
Two years ago, Halifax lawyer and former ombudsman Douglas Ruck produced a report, “Regaining Trust,” which contained 21 recommendations for tackling racism in the Nova Scotia justice system.
“The bar society themselves said, in 2024, we accept all of the recommendations, including the recommendation to go back and look at how Black lawyers were treated,” Howe said.
“And yet they have an opportunity through the human rights commission who's the very body that's designed to look into something like this, allegations of discrimination, and instead of accepting that and saying, well, we're going to examine our processes and see if they were fair, they're fighting it every way they can, they're trying to prevent me from having a board of inquiry.”
In a statement to CBC News earlier this month, Jennifer Pink, interim executive director of the barristers’ society, said “The NSBS vigorously contends that the NSHRC's decision was unreasonable and emerged from a flawed decision-making process on multiple grounds, as detailed in the Society’s Notice for Judicial Review filed with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on March 4, 2026.”
Pink goes on to note in her statement that Howe’s allegations of racial bias have been tested in the courts.
“Nova Scotia’s highest court found no evidence to support his allegations,” Pink wrote.
“Further, it concluded that ‘the Ruck Report provides no basis for suggesting that Mr. Howe’s disbarment was marred by systemic racism’. Subsequent applications by Mr. Howe for Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada were denied.”
But Howe said the focus of the human rights commission is very different from the focus applied by the various courts.
“Now, if we go in front of a human rights commission, the focal point is the bar society discriminated against me,” Howe said.
“So they might try to say Lyle's done all these horrible things, that's fine, but that's in the background and we can't disbar Lyle, it's already been done. So all we can do now is look at your actions, the bar society's actions.”
He says an aspect of his past looms over his battles with the society. In 2014, Howe was convicted of sexual assault in a high-profile jury trial.
While the conviction was overturned on appeal, “There's no question in my mind that their [the disciplinary panel’s] image of me was tainted by the charges that I just beat before I went into this disciplinary proceeding,” Howe said.
“Anybody would be tainted by that.”
He said he still encounters people who assume he was disbarred because of the sexual assault allegation.
As he waits for the court to rule on the society’s request for a judicial review, Howe is somewhat philosophical.
“I'll never be made whole; we're never going to get the years back, I've been out of practice for 10 years,” he said. “The trajectory that my career would have been on had it not been for discrimination, we're never going to fix that. I'm never going to be compensated for what I've lost and I know that.”
But he said if his fight brings about change so Black lawyers in the future don’t face the same obstacles, it would be worth it.
He has a personal stake in that outcome beyond his own story: one of his three sons is considering going to law school.
“I tell him that he shouldn't be a lawyer, he should probably be a scientist or a doctor maybe. But with two parents that are lawyers, I feel like he probably knows that he's got one foot in the door already and, you know, it's scary for me because to know that what I've gone through is one thing but I don't want anyone else to suffer the way that I did.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Blair Rhodes has been a journalist for more than 40 years, the last 31 with CBC. His primary focus is on stories of crime and public safety. He can be reached at blair.rhodes@cbc.ca
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