If it was not quite victory that came Sharon Shore's way yesterday, it was at least a roadblock removed.
After an extensive and lengthy investigation of the 50-year-old student lawyer that "left no stone unturned," and a vigorous prosecution, the Law Society of Upper Canada is now not opposing Ms. Shore's admission to the bar.
And, prosecutor Sean Dewart said yesterday, the law society acknowledges that it is "manifestly open" for the hearing panel to conclude that the circumstances that led to Ms. Shore's admitted misconduct were "completely, utterly unique" and thus no evidence of bad character.
The law society could have opposed Ms. Shore's call to the bar, endorsed her admission or remained neutral, which is what its position not to fight her call to the bar effectively means.
But given that many such complaints never even get to a formal hearing but are dealt with quietly, and given the resources the law society devoted to Ms. Shore's case, the shift in position is nonetheless significant.
Mr. Dewart went on to withdraw the third of the original four allegations made against Ms. Shore by prominent Toronto lawyers Marlys Edwardh„© and Liz McIntyre.
Two other allegations were dismissed earlier this week, leaving only one: Ms. Shore's failure to disclose a doctor's report in the midst of serious criminal proceedings.
The unique circumstance to which Mr. Dewart referred was the unexpected death of Ms. Shore's only daughter, Lisa, who died at the Hospital for Sick Children on Oct. 22, 1998 — a death that is now universally acknowledged to have been completely preventable.
The little girl was being treated with morphine, whose most dangerous side effect is respiratory depression, for severe pain following an earlier broken leg.
A month after Lisa's death, Ms. Shore's father, Philip, while saying a prayer at synagogue for his lost little granddaughter, died suddenly — thrusting Ms. Shore, a chartered accountant in her first career, into the presidency of his small firm in order to keep it going, and its staff employed, while she was still reeling from Lisa's death.
It was while juggling all this that Ms. Shore nonetheless managed to enter law school as a mature student, graduate with distinction and article successfully with a firm that has offered her a full-time job and whose staff obviously view her as a jewel of a find.
She was on the brink of becoming a full-fledged lawyer, just three months away from her scheduled call to the bar, when Ms. Edwardh's and Ms. McIntyre's complaint arrived at the law society last spring.
The essence of the lawyers' complaint is that Ms. Shore doesn't possess the requisite "good character" to be a lawyer and that her steely advocacy for her dead daughter was evidence that she might be "ungovernable."
The lawyers cast their action only as doing their duty as officers of the court, but they had a long and adversarial relationship with Ms. Shore.
Ms. McIntyre represented several of the Sick Children's nurses at a heated coroner's inquest that was sparked in Ms. Shore's determination to find out why her lovely daughter died — the inquest jury ultimately ruled the death a homicide — and later represented one of two nurses who subsequently were charged criminally in Lisa's death.
Ms. Edwardh represented the other.
The lawyers also represented the two nurses at the College of Nurses of Ontario, where Ms. Shore had lodged complaints.
Last year, the two nurses pleaded guilty to one count each of professional misconduct and were described by College prosecutor Linda Rothstein as having "failed to do enough to adequately assess Lisa Shore .ƒ|.ƒ|. and failed to get her the help she needed" when there were "warning signs she was experiencing respiratory depression."
Ms. Shore's misconduct would pale by comparison in most minds: As the nurses' preliminary hearing approached, she failed to disclose to the police and prosecutor a slim report by a Boston doctor who deemed Lisa's pain to be in her head.
It would have had little impact on the critical issue at trial — the quality of the care the little girl received or more accurately didn't — for Lisa had been put on the morphine drip for the pain, whether hospital staff believed it real or not.
But Ms. Shore's failure not to disclose the report until after the nurses' preliminary hearing had begun damaged her credibility as a witness and was a key reason the criminal charges were dropped.
Once before, just weeks after the little girl died, Ms. Shore — she had ordered all her daughter's health records as she fought to find out what had happened — saw that report for the first time, and chucked it. "As a mother, I felt what he [the doctor] wrote was not fair, not accurate," she testified here. "I didn't want it in my house."
But in the fall of 2002, even as she was entering her first year of law school, Ms. Shore was asked for those same health records, requested them from the hospital, and again found the same note in the files.
Again, she threw the report away. Though she ultimately came forward voluntarily a few months later to confess, the damage to the criminal case was done.
In fact, Ms. Shore, as the victim's mother and an important witness, never should have been put in the position of records gatekeeper for the prosecution. The usual course is for the prosecutor or police to obtain an authorization, and then obtain the records independently.
It was this second failure to disclose the Boston record that Mr. Dewart said yesterday was the significant error.
After all, he said, the first time, Ms. Shore was in the rawest stage of grieving. But, four years later when she made the same decision, "she was not in the immediate throes of bereavement." Mr. Dewart hastened to add he was "not attempting to minimize her loss," but was interrupted by panel member Heather Ross, a lawyer from Goderich, Ont.
"Let me ask you a question about that," Ms. Ross said. "God knows, I'm a parent, and I can't imagine" what it's like to lose a child. "Who are we to suggest that with the passing of a month, a year, two, three, four years, grief is abated?"
In that clinical, crisp proceeding, on the heels of all that has happened to the remarkable Ms. Shore, the remark sounded awfully like kindness: evidence that empathy and lawyering need not be strangers.
cblatchford@globeandmail.com
