Lisa Henderson

Lisa Henderson, LLB, was called to the Bar in 1992 and began her career as a law clerk to the judges of what was then the Ontario Court—General Division. In 1993, she became an assistant Crown attorney with the downtown Toronto Crown Attorney’s office. In the early 2000s, she started handling child pornography prosecutions as one of two specialized Crowns in the downtown office. She was asked to join the Attorney General’s Task Force on Internet Crimes Against Children and eventually became its chair.

Since 2006, Lisa has been the provincial Crown coordinator for Ontario’s Provincial Strategy to Combat Internet Crimes Against Children. In this role, she conducts trials and appeals, and she provides advice and education to police, Crown attorneys, and victim services providers regarding child exploitation offences and search-related issues, particularly those involving digital devices. In addition, she drafted the Internet Child Exploitation Handbook for Crowns and worked with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection on the development of materials for parents and schools to deal with the misuse of intimate images. Lisa is equally passionate about trial advocacy and since 1999 has been an instructor at both the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School. She was a director of the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association Trial Advocacy Summer School course for 17 years and spent 5 years as a director of the Current Legal Issues course. In 2023, Lisa was the recipient of the Frank M Hoffman award, the highest honour the OCAA can bestow on one of its members. In her spare time, she hones her cross-examination skills on her two now-grown sons.