Jessica Read

About Jessica Read

Jessica Read is a criminal defence lawyer and a partner at Collett Read LLP who used to prosecute for the Crown. That experience shows most in impaired driving cases. The Ministry of the Attorney General gave Jessica specific training in prosecuting those charges, and Jessica took many of them to trial against seasoned defence counsel from across Ontario. Legal Aid Ontario has designated Jessica to defend extremely serious matters, and Jessica has argued at every level of court in the province.

It started at Osgoode Hall Law School, where Jessica earned a spot in the Criminal Intensive Program and did a student clerkship with Justice Joseph F. Kenkel. Jessica came away from that clerkship more determined than ever to be a fierce trial lawyer. After articling, the next step was the Crown's office as an assistant Crown Attorney, prosecuting serious cases that included jury trials for first-degree murder and sexual assault. The job also meant time at the Centre of Forensic Science with senior Crowns from around Ontario, learning current DNA technology.

Defence work was always the real pull, and Jessica had long pictured a career fighting for individual rights. In 2018 Jessica and Dean Collett, a classmate from the Criminal Intensive Program, teamed up: Jessica left the Hamilton Crown Attorney's office to build the firm the two had first talked about years before as students. Jessica has also guest lectured to first-year Criminal Law students at Osgoode.