David Butt is a trial and appellate lawyer with a wide-ranging practice. He is also a leading expert and advocate in the fight against Internet child exploitation. He graduated from Queen’s Law School at the top of his class and earned his LLM at Harvard Law School, which he attended as Canada’s 1988 Viscount Bennett Scholar. He has clerked for both the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. He was called to the Bar in 1989. He has been lead counsel more than two dozen times in the Supreme Court of Canada, and hundreds of times in the Court of Appeal for Ontario. As an Assistant Crown Attorney, Mr. Butt conducted numerous lengthy and complex trials. He was the first Canadian prosecutor to specialize in Internet child abuse cases, and has since advised, consulted with, and taught prosecutors and police officers across the country.

Mr. Butt has served as counsel to three independent judicial inquiries or reviews. Most recently he was lead counsel in the Toronto External Contracts Inquiry before Madame Justice Denise Bellamy of the Ontario Superior Court. The Bellamy Inquiry delved deeply into a wide range of municipal governance, procurement and ethics issues inside the City of Toronto.

A former Harvard teaching fellow, Mr. Butt has designed and delivered a large variety of professional education programs to the private and public bars from Vancouver to St John’s. He is a frequent speaker and lecturer on ethics in government and a frequent media commentator on various legal issues.

Building on his prosecutorial experience, Mr. Butt remains deeply involved in the fight against Internet child exploitation. He has consulted throughout Europe, North America, South America and Asia. He donates many pro bono hours and countless media appearances to the issue. In addition to sitting on the Kinsa Board, Mr. Butt is the Secretary of Bangkok-based ECPAT International, the world’s largest NGO devoted exclusively to the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children.