Dean Collett

About Dean Collett

Dean Collett is a criminal defence lawyer and a partner at Collett Read LLP, and criminal law is all Dean does. Over the years that's meant acting for clients across every part of the criminal field.

Law is a second career. Dean first spent twenty years building businesses in hospitality, then turned to criminal justice out of a wish to help people, particularly people going through a crisis. At Osgoode Hall Law School, Dean took the Criminal Intensive program and joined the Innocence Project, working on files for people who'd been wrongfully convicted, and was later asked to serve as the Dean's Fellow for Constitutional Law.

After starting out as a sole practitioner, Dean always meant to build a bigger firm of committed defence lawyers. In 2018 that plan took shape alongside Jessica Read, a classmate from the same Criminal Intensive Program, and the two now talk through client files and points of law for hours every day. For Dean, knowing each client as a person, not just a file, is a core part of advocacy.

Dean also serves on the executive board of the Hamilton Criminal Lawyers Association and has been invited back to Osgoode as a guest lecturer.