The Law Society Tribunal has ruled that an Ontario lawyer, Kristine Genevieve Holder, engaged in professional misconduct by providing legal services while she was actively under a disciplinary suspension1. The decision, released on October 6, 2025, found that the lawyer’s act of filing a statement of claim on behalf of a client in January 2023 constituted practising law, a direct violation of her suspension terms. The panel, led by adjudicator Murray W. Chitra, determined that misconduct was established and has directed that a new hearing be scheduled to address a potential penalty.
The case brings to light the lawyer’s troubled professional history, which led to the very suspension she was found to have breached. Ms. Holder was called to the bar in 2002 and practised litigation. After leaving a firm in 2017 to start a solo practice, she faced a series of personal and professional difficulties that resulted in multiple administrative suspensions of her licence. These included a suspension from April to May 2019 for failing to comply with continuing professional development and insurance obligations, followed by another suspension starting in June 2019 for non-payment of her annual fees. A third suspension, for failing to file her 2018 annual report, began in July 2019.
This history of administrative non-compliance culminated in a disciplinary hearing on September 16, 2022. At that hearing, the tribunal panel addressed allegations that Ms. Holder had practised law for more than a year while subject to those administrative suspensions. Based on an agreed statement of facts and a joint submission on penalty, the panel ordered that her licence be suspended for five months, beginning on November 15, 2022. A central condition of this disciplinary order was that Ms. Holder must fully comply with the Law Society’s Guidelines for Lawyers Who Are Suspended or Who Have Given an Undertaking Not to Practise.
As her five-month suspension approached, Ms. Holder was working as an associate at a law firm and was responsible for approximately 100 files. She arranged for these files to be transferred to other lawyers. However, one client, identified in the decision as “Client A,” presented an ongoing problem. This individual had been Ms. Holder’s client since her sole practitioner days in 2017. The tribunal heard that Client A could not meet her new firm’s retainer requirements. Ms. Holder testified that they never had a written retainer agreement, she found the client “volatile,” and she did not know how to formally terminate their solicitor-client relationship. She had assisted him on a limited scope basis with several litigation matters, but never appeared in court for him.
One of these matters was a claim for unpaid wages against a company called Sandwich Box. An application Client A had filed himself was dismissed, but the court ruled he could proceed if he converted the matter into a formal action by filing a statement of claim. Ms. Holder drafted this document and emailed it to him in September 2018 with instructions on how to file it himself. She testified that she assumed he had done so, but nearly a year later, in 2019, Client A contacted her and said he did not want to file it alone. They met at the courthouse and spent half a day in line before giving up. Ms. Holder then agreed to mail the claim and a money order for the fee to the court. She assumed it would be processed and returned to Client A, who was listed as the self-represented litigant.
Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread court closures. In the summer of 2020, Client A contacted Ms. Holder at her new firm to complain about the delay. At the time, she assumed the mailed-in claim was simply caught in a pandemic-related backlog. Ms. Holder testified that she informed Client A in 2020 that she could not continue working for him, as he had stopped paying her in 2019. She stated that he became angry and agreed to handle matters himself if she returned $720. She sent him the money, hoping to finalize their disengagement.
Her hopes were not realized. According to Ms. Holder’s testimony, Client A continued to contact her, insisting she issue the claim at her own expense and threatening to complain to the Law Society if she refused. Finally, in July 2022, she agreed to file the claim again simply to have him leave her alone. On August 30, 2022, several weeks before her five-month disciplinary suspension was set to begin, she submitted the claim through the Superior Court’s online filing portal. She used Client A’s contact information and assumed the issued claim would be sent directly to him. The Law Society’s investigation later found no court record of either this 2022 online filing or the 2019 mailed filing.
Ms. Holder’s disciplinary suspension began as scheduled on November 15, 2022, and her employment at her firm was terminated. She testified that she stopped engaging with Client A, ignoring a message from him on November 22. The situation reached a critical point on January 6, 2023, while Ms. Holder was suspended. Her former employer contacted her to report that Client A had shown up at their office looking for her. Alarmed, Ms. Holder sent Client A a text message. The tribunal decision reproduced their exchange, in which Ms. Holder explicitly wrote, “You should know that I have been fired from [firm name] and have had my license suspended.”
Client A replied with his own threat: “I’m putting in a complaint to the LSUC. It’s been over 4 mths!” Ms. Holder responded that she was looking into the matter, believing the claim she filed in August had been processed. She wrote, “If I have to do it again, I will. But I will have it returned to me to track it … and then send it to you.” Later that same day, Ms. Holder, by her own account, took the statement of claim she had prepared years earlier and filed it again through the online portal. This time, she used her own contact information to track it. On January 16, 2023, she received an email from the Superior Court of Justice confirming the claim was successfully filed and issued. She then forwarded this official court email to Client A without any additional message.
Despite her actions, Client A filed a complaint with the Law Society in July 2024. During the subsequent investigation, Ms. Holder did not deny filing the document while suspended. She explained her actions by stating, “I merely issued a claim I had prepared years before… I made no amendments to the claim and offered no legal advice.” She stressed that she had informed Client A of her suspension before sending him the issued claim. In her view, she was performing a “strictly administrative task that anyone could do.” She told the investigator that she was under immense emotional and financial stress at the time, earning money as a food delivery driver, and filed the claim “only to have [Client A] finally leave me alone.”
At the hearing, the Law Society argued that Ms. Holder’s actions were a clear violation. The Law Society Act defines “providing legal services” as conduct involving the application of legal principles and judgment. It specifically includes drafting a document for a proceeding and “determining what documents to serve or file… or determining when, where or how to serve a document.” The Law Society’s counsel argued this was not a random clerical task but the “knowing finalization of a claim.”
Ms. Holder’s counsel, Brooke MacKenzie, countered that this was a “narrow and technical view of the law.” She argued that Ms. Holder was mindful of her obligations, had been transparent with the client about her suspension, and was not holding herself out as his lawyer. The defence characterized the filing as a purely administrative act, done without legal judgment, to rectify prior failed filings and stop the client’s harassment. Her counsel argued that a finding of professional misconduct should not be applied to what was, at worst, a “single technical breach.”
Adjudicator Murray Chitra sided with the Law Society, grounding his decision in the clear language of the law. He noted that the Rules of Professional Conduct state a suspended lawyer “shall not practise law.” He found that Ms. Holder’s actions fell squarely within the Law Society Act’s definition of providing legal services. He also pointed to the Guidelines for Lawyers Who Are Suspended, which Ms. Holder had been explicitly ordered to obey. Those guidelines permit only limited activities, such as assisting in transferring files or collecting accounts receivable. Filing new court documents is not a permitted activity.
Mr. Chitra found Ms. Holder’s attempt to disengage from Client A was never done “clearly, firmly, formally, or in writing.” He also saw “no practical difference” between her first two attempts to file the claim (while licensed) and her third attempt (while suspended). “Certainly,” he wrote, “a reasonable person would have difficulty concluding that the licensee was acting as a lawyer for two attempts but only performing the third in a clerical or administrative role.” He concluded that drafting and filing claims are core functions of a lawyer, involving legal skill and judgment. “I am satisfied that in the circumstance the Lawyer’s actions constituted provision of legal services while suspended,” Mr. Chitra wrote.
The tribunal formally found that professional misconduct had been established. A separate half-day hearing will be scheduled to determine the consequences for Ms. Holder, which could include a further penalty and costs.
Read more cases about proceedings in regulated professions here.
