Joseph Markson

Joseph Markson’s practice is directed to the defence of individual and corporate clients in criminal and regulatory litigation. His practice areas are criminal and regulatory law, tax evasion and white-collar crime, and the law of policing and professional discipline. He has extensive experience successfully conducting criminal and quasi-criminal trials, regulatory and professional discipline hearings, appeals, advisory work, and witness representation.

Joseph has been selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in Canada for his work in Criminal Defence since 2020. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, an organization of preeminent trial lawyers from the United States, Canada, and more than 30 countries. Fellowship in the Academy is by invitation only, and trial lawyers become Fellows only after a careful screening process, which includes both peer and judicial review. He is a former Director of The Advocates’ Society (2014-2018) and an Honorary Overseas Member of the Commercial Bar Association of England and Wales. Joseph is President and a Past-Scholar of The Harold G. Fox Education Fund.

Joseph’s individual clients are professionals, first responders, and persons for whom a criminal or regulatory investigation, prosecution or conviction may jeopardize their employment, professional and personal reputations, and ability to travel. He advises and represents corporations, professional service firms, and their directors, officers, senior employees, and partners.

Joseph is routinely retained to direct internal investigations and to navigate interactions with the police and investigative agencies where there is possible criminal or regulatory law exposure. He works with teams of counsel to solve the challenges posed by national and cross-border criminal and regulatory investigations and prosecutions. Joseph advises civil tax counsel and acts for clients under investigation for or charged with domestic and offshore tax evasion by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Joseph brings to the practice his expertise as a former federal prosecutor. Appointed from 1995 to 2021, he was an Agent of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. He has extensive trial, jury trial, search warrant, and wiretap experience and has prosecuted numerous major complex cases involving organized crime, tax evasion, white-collar crime, proceeds of crime, regulatory, cross-border and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offences.

Joseph has extensive experience acting for police officers in investigations by the Ontario Special Investigations Unit and facing criminal and Police Services Act investigations and charges. He is counsel to the Ontario Provincial Police Association, police associations in the Greater Toronto Area and across Ontario, the Toronto Police Service Senior Officers’ Organization and Peace Officers in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. He has acted for the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, members of police services boards and police services. He advises on law of policing issues and represented the Police Association of Ontario in its submissions to the Independent Police Oversight Review conducted by Justice Tulloch.

Education

Joseph Markson obtained his LL.M. from Trinity Hall, Cambridge University in 1991, his LL.B. from Queen’s University in 1989, and his B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Toronto in 1985. He articled in Toronto at Davies Ward & Beck and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1992.

Awards and Related Experience

Following his call to the Ontario Bar, Joseph received a Harold G. Fox Education Fund Scholarship. He trained for one year as a barrister in three leading commercial sets of Barristers’ Chambers of the Middle Temple, The Inns of Court, London. He served as marshal to Judges of the High Court at the Old Bailey and in Cardiff.

In law school, Joseph represented Canada and won the Brown-Mosten International Client Consultation Competition competing against the United States and England and Wales. He worked as a Special Constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in the Crown Law Office - Criminal. Joseph received a postgraduate scholarship from the University of Toronto School of Management and Woods Gordon Management Consultants (Ernst & Young).

Joseph is a frequent speaker in continuing legal education and professional association programs and serves as guest faculty at the University of Notre Dame Law School's Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshops.

Contact

Direct: 416.366.0505
Fax: 416.352.5989
Email: jmarkson@marksonlaw.com