As far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong please), Elle graduated from Durham University with an LLB, wrote the NCA equivalency exams when she returned to Canada, then was officially called to the Canadian bar (I think she still has that video up where she was called in the Vancouver courthouse). She got her job as an Investigator with MFDA and worked there for five years before moving to Florida with Rick.
While a law degree wasn’t required for her to be an Investigator, it was strongly encouraged and MFDA even went as far as paying her membership dues with the BC Law Society as well as the fees associated with taking CPD courses to keep her membership current. She hasn’t renewed her membership since her breakup with Rick and settlement in Seattle (I checked the BC Law Society directory...and she doesn’t have a reason to as she’s made it abundantly clear that she won’t be returning to Vancouver).
So while Elle technically was a Canadian lawyer (i.e. she had the requisite degree, wrote the requisite tests, got called to the bar, and maintained her status in good standing), the main issue was her passing off her investigator job as an in-house counsel job aka the lawyer on record representing the MFDA in litigation matters. She exaggerated her investigator job as one that’s on the same level as Joe’s traditional lawyer job.
While it might’ve been easier for her to just say “I work as in-house counsel in securities law” as a catch-all phrase, she always seemed reluctant to really get into the nature of her work (without disclosing confidential info obviously). She assisted, at a paralegal level, the lawyers who represented the MFDA but she never had signing authority on matters, nor was she ever the official counsel on record, nor was she the one to appear in court (and if she was, it would be for cross-examinations and nothing more), nor would she be the person the boardroom negotiating settlement terms - and it’s this discrepancy that everyone (myself included) has issues with.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Elle was (legally) misrepresenting herself, but it still doesn’t take away from shady and exaggerated ways she presented her job to us. Heck, just call it what it is - “Fraud Investigator”