Mabel Lai

Mabel Lai is Crown counsel at the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario), Crown Law Office—Criminal. She graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (Engineering Science, Physics Option—Condensed Matter and Photonics Stream) in 2006 and from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law as class-elected valedictorian in 2009. She clerked for the judges of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and was called to the Ontario bar in 2010. Before joining her current office in 2012, Mabel practised as an assistant Crown attorney in Peel Region and briefly as defence counsel in Toronto. She has taught in educational programs for the judiciary, the legal profession, and law enforcement in the areas of cybercrime, digital evidence, expert evidence, and search and seizure. Her practice consists of criminal appeals, trials of alleged police criminality, and advice to law enforcement on issues of electronic surveillance, search and seizure, and mutual legal assistance. She is a member of her office’s Computer and Internet-Related Crime Team and Forensic Evidence Advisory Committee. She has argued criminal cases at all levels of court in Ontario and at the Supreme Court of Canada. She serves as co-lead of the Electronic Surveillance Unit for the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Mabel volunteers as a member of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (Ontario) (FACL) Board of Directors, a member of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Research Ethics Board, and a coach of the Osgoode Hall Law School Gale Cup Moot team. She is a past recipient of the FACL Ontario Public Sector Lawyer Award and the Ontario Crown Attorneys Association Lucas-Porter Award for excellence in the pursuit of justice through science.