Frank Addario

Addario Law Group has earned a reputation as one of the best criminal law firms in Canada. Frank Addario is the principal of Addario Law Group. He leads a group of smart, hard-working advocates committed to finding innovative ways to help clients solve their criminal, regulatory and constitutional law problems.

Frank has been counsel on numerous individual and corporate investigations, criminal trials in the Superior Court of Justice and appeals in criminal matters before the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Large organizations, public companies, and chartered banks retain Frank to conduct internal investigations and to respond to enterprise-threatening events. He regularly advises public bodies, non-profits and oversight agencies, including the Toronto Police Services Board, about regulatory, criminal and constitutional law. Few lawyers in Canada have Frank’s experience in managing the overlapping demands of concurrent criminal and regulatory investigations and the media to guide organizations safely through a crisis.

Named one of the 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada in 2010 and past President of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA), he has frequently appeared as counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada. He regularly represents individuals and corporations under investigation or who are the target of enforcement proceedings by police and regulatory agencies. He was nominated by his peers as one of the country’s leading Business Crime Defence and Investigations practitioners in Who’s Who Legal: Canada. This year he was nominated by his American colleagues to become a fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers as the only active Canadian criminal lawyer. The criteria for acceptance as a fellow of the ABCL include the highest standards of professional ethics and criminal defence litigation skills.

Frank is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the premier organization of trial lawyers in North America. Membership is extended by invitation and only after rigorous peer review. Fewer than 1 percent of the bar in any U.S. state or Canadian province is invited to join the College.

Frank is also a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

In 2011 Frank was given the Lexpert Zenith Award for contributing to Access to Justice for his work in leading the CLA in a boycott of Legal Aid in order to bring attention to the chronic underfunding of the program and force the government to provide better access to justice for its poorest citizens. In 2012 he received the Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice Through Law. Osgoode Hall Law School awards this medal to a member of the Canadian legal community who has demonstrated a commitment to using the law as a means for achieving social justice.

Frank is frequently asked to distill criminal law issues for large organizations, general counsel and the media. He writes and speaks about criminal law, civil liberties and related topics to lawyers and to the wider public on a regular basis.