Professional Regulatory

With one of the largest and most experienced professional regulatory groups in Western Canada, Field Law serves as a trusted advisor to regulatory colleges and organizations across numerous sectors - health care, policing, legal, financial, engineering, geoscience plus many more - and provides strategic guidance on matters such as governance, legislative reform, registration, continuing competence, discipline, unauthorized practice and privacy.

Our Approach

We work closely with regulators to provide practical, timely, and cost-effective legal solutions. Our goal is to help our clients make confident decisions, manage risk, and maintain public trust in their professions.

Our Work

Complaints: Our lawyers appear before a variety of tribunals to prosecute allegations of unprofessional conduct and have prosecuted hundreds of professional discipline cases. We provide support at all stages of the complaints and discipline process including:

• Processing complaints in accordance with the governing legislation
• Legal advice and support for investigators
• Legal advice regarding the decision to refer a matter to a hearing or to dismiss it
• Drafting formal allegations of unprofessional conduct
• Alternate complaint resolution processes
• Planning a discipline hearing
• Prosecuting allegations of unprofessional conduct and addressing sanctions
• Appeals

Registration: Our lawyers have experience supporting Registrars and Registration Committees across a broad range of professions. We provide legal advice about registration issues including:

• Processes for the assessment and recognition of professional training programs and foreign qualifications
• The enforceability of statutory and other registration prerequisites
• Labour mobility applications
• Good character and reputation issues
• Human rights issues such as alleged discrimination in the registration processes
• Appeals

Independent Counsel: Our lawyers act as independent legal counsel to tribunals, providing support both during and after a hearing and assisting the tribunal to identify all the important issues, to properly deal with evidence, to make well-reasoned and defensible decisions and to provide detailed written reasons for the decisions. 

Judicial Reviews and Lawsuits: We have substantial experience at all levels of Court in applications for judicial review and appeals relating to the regulation of professions, including complaints and registration, and in defending lawsuits brought against regulatory organizations. 

Training: Our group provides a broad range of training and customized workshops for regulatory committees and administrators. Training for regulators is most effective when it is offered on a regular, annual basis with adjustment to the training program each year depending on need. Because the composition of regulatory committees frequently changes, new members need orientation, and experienced members require reinforcement of their knowledge and skills. Regulators which offer training on an irregular basis will fail to reap the full benefits of a formal training program. We offer regular newsletters, legal updates, and roundtable discussions to keep our clients informed and connected. Visit our Training page to learn more. 

Members of the group are authors of two books on professional regulation (The Annotated Health Professions Act and The Law of Regulatory Investigations in Canada) and numerous guides and handbooks for regulators. Jim Casey, KC, a lawyer at Field Law for 35 years before retiring from the firm on December 31, 2023 and who was instrumental in founding our Professional Regulatory Group, is the author of the leading text in this area of law, The Regulation of Professions in Canada.

Legislative Review: Our lawyers have assisted clients with the development of new regulatory legislation and with the replacement of existing legislation including statutes, regulations, bylaws, codes and standards for the professions. We can provide assistance with research, stakeholder consultations, policy papers, policy review and drafting instructions or legislative drafting. Our lawyers can also assist regulatory organizations with the preparation of bylaw amendments and the enactment or revision of codes and standards for the profession in accordance with the governing legislation. 

External Reviews: Our lawyers have experience conducting external reviews of professional regulators. This is a rigorous assessment of the processes and functions of a regulatory organization. An external review can be conducted on all of a regulator's processes and functions, or alternatively a targeted process can be used to assess select regulatory functions, such as registration or discipline. The review is intended to identify what is working well, what is not working well, where there may be inefficiencies and where there are risks that may give rise to a successful legal challenge.