Law Program Committee

Adriel Weaver is a lawyer at Goldblatt Partners LLP. She has a broad litigation practice, including criminal, constitutional, Aboriginal, and administrative law matters. She has appeared in all levels of court in Ontario, as well as at the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court of Canada. Adriel received her law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2006, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 2007 after clerking at the Court of Appeal for Ontario.  She also holds a Master’s in Environmental Studies from York University, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto in Urban and Environmental Studies. Adriel is a sessional lecturer in the Criminology and Sociolegal Studies program at the University of Toronto.

Grace Ajele is a lawyer at Calgary Legal Guidance. She practices in the area of Domestic Violence Family Law and, more recently, is working to build a related program in the area of Pre-Apprehension Child Welfare. Having received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, Grace is dedicated to addressing issues of inequality (particularly in the areas of race, class, gender, and sexuality) and to increasing access to justice for all people. While obtaining her law degree at the University of Calgary, she became a founding member of the Black Law Students Association - U of C chapter, and was involved in various Pro Bono projects including those centred around housing rights, prisoners' rights, and gender discrimination. Grace is committed to using an intersectional approach in all her work, and to advocating for clients in a way that centres their experience and their autonomy.

Florence Ashley (they/them) is a transfeminine jurist and bioethicist. They are currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Joint Centre for Bioethics, where they research the use of science in court cases involving transgender youth. Florence received obtained B.C.L./J.D. and LL.M. (Bioeth.) degrees from McGill University in 2017 and 2020. In 2019-2020, Florence was a law clerk for Justice Sheilah L. Martin at the Supreme Court of Canada. Their work on trans and feminist issues is widely published in law, bioethics, and social sciences journals. Florence frequently contributes to public conversations around trans issues and received the 2018-2019 Canadian Bar Association’s SOGIC Hero Award for their academic and public education work.

Natasha Bakht is a Full Professor of law at the University of Ottawa and the Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession (2020-2022). She has taught courses in family law, criminal law, children and the law, the law and policy of multiculturalism, and women, religion and law. She was called to the bar of Ontario in 2003 and served as a law clerk to Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. Her legal scholarship explores the intersection between religious freedom and women’s equality. She served as the English Language Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law (2014-2020). Natasha’s legal activism includes involvement with the National Association of Women and the Law and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). She was named one of the top 50 people in city by Ottawa Life Magazine (2009), received a Femmy Award by International Women’s Day Ottawa for being a thought leader in the National Capital Region (2017) and received the South Asian Bar Association’s Legal Excellence Award (2019). Together with her friend and colleague Lynda Collins, she stretched the legal boundaries of family by becoming legal co-mothers of their son, Elaan, though they are not in a conjugal relationship. She is also a Dora-nominated dancer and choreographer.

Coline Bellefleur is a Quebec-based lawyer who focuses on immigration and correctional law. She represents clients before Canadian and Quebec courts at the federal and provincial levels, as well as before various governmental and prison administrations. She is also an assistant professor at the faculty of law of the University of Montreal, where she teaches a class on immigration law. Coline holds a Bachelor in Law from the University of Strasbourg. She also holds a master’s degree in International and European law from the University of Grenoble, and a master’s degree in human rights from the High European Studies Institute of Strasbourg. Aside from being a member of the executive committee of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, she also co-founded the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Association of Muslim Lawyers, which she presided from 2014 to 2017. She has appeared before parliamentary committees on various occasions and she is regularly involved in strategic litigations pertaining to her areas of expertise.

Gillian Bourke is a lawyer at the Yellowknife office of Lawson Lundell LLP. Her practice focuses on civil litigation and child protection in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.  Prior to moving to Yellowknife, Gillian worked in a general practice law firm and as Crown Counsel in Iqaluit, Nunavut and travelled extensively in Nunavut. Gillian has a particular interest in child protection and family law, and was a witness at the House of Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee on Bill C-78 (An Act to amend the Divorce Act). Gillian hold a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in History from the University of New Brunswick, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Ottawa.

Gillian Calder is an Associate Professor, and former Associate Dean, at the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law where she has been teaching Constitutional Law and Family Law from feminist, queer and anti-colonialist perspectives since 2004.  Gillian’s research has focused on questions of legal imagination, theories of constitutional law, law’s impact on our understanding of the family and family formation, and storytelling.  And, she is keenly interested in critical legal pedagogy.  She is a single-parent, a lapsed rock climber, and when the need arises, is able to connect anything in law to penguins.  She is grateful for the opportunity to return to LEAF’s LPC at this important moment.

Dr. Chapman obtained her JD and LLM degrees from The University of Western Ontario in 2002 and 2006, respectively, and her PhD from Osgoode Hall law school at York University in 2009. Her graduate work focused on criminal law defences including automatism, duress, and necessity. Dr. Chapman began teaching full time at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo in 2007. After six years at UW, in 2013 Dr. Chapman left Southwestern Ontario to become a founding professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Law. Dr. Chapman teaches tort and criminal law, and she researches on primarily criminal law defences, wrongful convictions, psychological coercion, violence against women, and domestic violence.

On leave

Dr. Emma Cunliffe is a Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Cunliffe studies how courts decide the facts of contested cases. She is particularly interested in expert evidence, the operation of implicit bias, and legal processes regarding gendered and racialized violence, particularly those regarding Indigenous people. Dr. Cunliffe is also a member of the evidence-based forensic initiative, which is based at the University of New South Wales (where she is a senior visiting fellow).

Maria Dugas is an Assistant Professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Maria’s research focusses on critical race theory, in particular the intersection of race and the criminal justice system from an African Nova Scotian/African Canadian perspective. She articled with Nova Scotia Legal Aid in the Youth Criminal Justice Office and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 2016. In 2017, Maria became the first African Nova Scotian to clerk at the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, a position she held from 2017-2018. She has been teaching at the Schulich School of Law since 2018. She holds a JD and LL.M from Dalhousie University.

On leave

Nadia is a Partner at BLG. She represents a wide range of clients, in both English and French, in complex and often high-profile proceedings, including commercial litigation matters (including class actions) as well as administrative, regulatory, constitutional, and human rights law cases. Nadia has represented clients in a broad range of industries (e.g. transportation, financial services, broadcasting and telecommunications, energy, entertainment, etc.) and has particular subject-matter expertise in transportation law, electoral law, access to information, and official language rights. She regularly appears before all levels of federal and provincial courts, administrative tribunals, and commissions of inquiry, and has appeared numerous times before the Supreme Court of Canada. Nadia is the Co-Chair of BLG’s Appellate Advocacy Group and serves as the President of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO). Prior to joining BLG, Nadia served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada to The Honourable Mr. Justice Bastarache.

Joanna N. Erdman is an Associate Professor and the inaugural MacBain Chair in Health Law and Policy at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Joanna’s research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and human rights in a transnational context. She chairs the Global Health Advisory Committee of the Public Health Program and serves on the advisory board of the Women’s Rights Program, Open Society Foundations. She is also the current chair of the board of IPPF-Canada. Joanna has acted as an intervener before various courts and international bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights, and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. She holds a JD from the University of Toronto and an LLM from Harvard Law School, and she completed a fellowship at Yale Law School.

On leave

Insiya Essajee is a lawyer with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, where she focuses on addressing systemic discrimination issues through targeted litigation, government consultation, and supporting policy development and outreach. She has done work on discrimination linked to sex and gender in numerous areas, including prison settings, policing, education, and the use of data and technology. She has a B.A.&Sc. from McMaster University and a JD from the University of Toronto.

Along with being a Yellowhead Research Associate, Christina Gray is also an Associate at JFK Law Corporation in the area of Aboriginal law. She is proudly Ts’msyen from Lax Kw’alaams and Dene from Treaty 8 Territory in the Northwest Territories. She is currently completing her Masters of Law at the University of Victoria, her research focuses on gendered narratives within the Ts’msyen legal order. She also has a Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Arts with a major in Art History, Visual Art, and Theory from the University of British Columbia. Christina resides in her Ts’msyen territory of Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia.

On leave

Marie Manikis is an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar at the Faculty of Law of McGill University where she teaches Criminal Justice, Sentencing, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure. She is a member of McGill’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the International Centre for Comparative Criminology. Professor Manikis’ scholarship is interdisciplinary and comparative, and uses social science methodologies to advance the available knowledge in criminal law and criminal justice. Her research interests include criminal justice and sentencing, and particularly aspects that relate to victim participation, prosecutorial discretion and accountability, bail and pre-trial detention, and finally, principles of Indigenous participation (Gladue principles). She has received several awards and prizes for her scholarship, including the Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researcher (2019), the Fondation du Barreau du Quebec’s award for best article (2018), and the Faculty of Law’s Research Merit Award (2017). Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and was presented at several conferences and seminars. It has also informed consultation reports provided for the Department of Justice in Canada, the Ministry of Justice in England and Wales and the Canadian Senate.

Sarah Morales, JD (UVic), LLM (University of Arizona), PhD (UVic), PostDoc (Illinois) is Coast Salish and a member of Cowichan Tribes. She is an Associate Professor and Acting Director of the JD/JID program at the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law. Sarah was previously an Associate Professor at the  University of Ottawa, Common Law Section, where she taught torts, Aboriginal law, Indigenous legal traditions and international human rights with a focus on Indigenous peoples.

Sarah’s research centres on Indigenous legal traditions, specifically the traditions of the Coast Salish people, Aboriginal law, and human rights. She has been active with Indigenous nations and NGOs across Canada in nation building, inherent rights recognition, and international human rights law. Among other things, Sarah teaches Legal Process and Torts in the JD stream, and is responsible for coordinating the special supplement to Legal Process for JD/JID students.

Reakash Walters is a criminal defence lawyer at Addario Law Group LLP with a decade of community advocacy experience. Reakash earned her law degree from the University of Ottawa in 2020 and graduated cum laude. Reakash has bylines in the Edmonton Journal, the Globe and Mail, Rabble, and other publications where she writes on prison abolition, transformative justice, anti-Black racism and the urgent need for systems change. Her recent article, “Against Amnesia: African Nova Scotia Women’s Generational Leadership in Civil Rights Organizing, 1950-79” was published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and highlights key Black female activists in Canada’s Black Power movement. In 2018, Reakash partnered with Senator Kim Pate to create an award-winning podcast called Appointed that addresses the legal and social obstacles facing criminalized and marginalized people. Reakash has been recognized nationally for her advocacy and was listed as a 2020 “Trailblazer” in Chatelaine Magazine. In short, Reakash is a descendant of Jamaican Maroons in blood and in spirit. She is dreaming safe futures beyond policing and punishment.

Maggie Wente is a partner at OKT. She is a member of Serpent River First Nation. Maggie has a broad practice serving First Nations governments, their related entities, businesses and not-for-profit corporations. Maggie advises on Treaty and Aboriginal rights in litigation and negotiation, human rights of Indigenous people and in particular equality for First Nations children and individuals in programs and services, in particular in the child welfare system. Maggie also advised in Indian Act matters, reserve land management, and First Nations governance. Maggie provides employment, labour and human rights advice to OKT’s clients. Maggie has a particular interest in working with her clients to on develop and implement sound governance policies and practices which reflect their traditional laws, as a foundation of self-determining Nations.

Maggie has appeared in courts of appeal and trial-level courts in Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Federal Court, as well as before arbitrators and adjudicators in commercial arbitrations, labour arbitrations, and adjudications under the Canada Labour Code.

Maggie graduated from the University of Toronto’s combined LL.B/M.S.W. program and from McGill University (B.A., Philosophy). Maggie is past-President of the Board of Directors at Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto. She was a Commissioner at the Ontario Human Rights Commission from 2006 to 2015.

Maggie is a member of the Indigenous Bar Association, the Ontario bar and the Newfoundland and Labrador bar, and is listed as Most Frequently Recommended in the Lexpert Directory on Indigenous Law.