Brennan L'Estrange

About Brennan L'Estrange

Brennan L'Estrange is a criminal lawyer in Ontario and an associate at Collett Read LLP. Criminal law has been the draw from the start. It's what brought Brennan to the firm, and at Queen's, Brennan signed up for every criminal law course the faculty offered.

Collett Read isn't a new workplace for Brennan. Both summers of law school were spent there as a summer student, the articling year followed after graduation, and Brennan came back as an associate once called to the bar. Before that, two summers at a full-service firm in Burlington gave Brennan exposure to corporate, family and real estate files as well as civil litigation.

The practical side of criminal work started in law school. In second year, Brennan joined the Queen's Legal Aid Litigation Clinic as a student caseworker, and third year brought a place in the Criminal Appellate Internship. Brennan also writes about criminal law: a peer-reviewed piece in the Manitoba Law Journal looks at when a hockey fight becomes a crime and how courts across Canada have handled those cases, and a second article, in the Oxford Journal of International Criminal Justice, takes up crimes against humanity where mob violence arises spontaneously.

Brennan's first degree was an Honours BA in political science from Trinity College at the University of Toronto, finished with High Distinction and a spot on the Dean's List in every one of the four years.