John Kerry Lefurgey

John Lefurgey received his undergraduate education in Nova Scotia at Acadia University, and in Scotland at the University of Aberdeen. After working and traveling for several years in Canada, the Middle East, and India, he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto where he received his LL.B. He then articled and worked as a lawyer in Toronto before seeing the light and moving to St. Catharines.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, John’s work exposed him to a wide variety of people and situations. Jobs as varied as irrigation supervisor on a kibbutz in Israel, physical education teacher at an orphanage in India, tree planter in northern Ontario, and bartender in various cities around Canada feature among the life experiences that give context to his work as a lawyer.

John was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1989. The first decade of his practice was devoted almost exclusively to criminal law. For the last 25 years his practice has included civil litigation and construction lien work. He is now focusing more on the criminal work, particularly the overlap between criminal and mental health law.

John has conducted dozens of jury trials and appeals and hundreds of judge-alone trials. He has also acted as counsel in several thousand other cases that resolved before trial. John has led seminars at the Ontario Bar Admission Course and lectured at continuing education conferences on topics including evidence, criminal and civil procedure, and mental health law.

John is a past President of the Lincoln County Law Association and of the Niagara Criminal Lawyers’ Association. He has been involved with committee work for various law-related organizations including Judicial Liaison Committees, Court Process Committees, and Mental Health Committees.

Outside of the practice of law, John spent over a decade on the Board of Youth Resources Niagara, which operated an open custody youth facility and a group home in Fonthill, Ontario. John was on the Board of Directors of the St. Catharines Concord Soccer Club for many years, including a period as President, and coached many teams. John has also coached basketball with the CYO Basketball organization. After earning his black belt, he taught jiu jitsu for a number of years at the St. Catharines YMCA. John had to end his basketball and soccer career in 2025 (the injuries finally caught up). Curling is his winter sport and golf is no