Law Program Committee

Adriel Weaver is a public law litigator at Goldblatt Partners, where her clients include criminal accused, prisoners, immigration detainees, constitutional and human rights claimants, and community and public interest organizations. She also has a growing labour arbitration practice in which she represents unions and professional associations in the education and health care sectors. Adriel graduated from the joint LL.B./M.E.S. program at Osgoode Hall Law School and York University and was called to the Ontario Bar in 2007 after clerking at the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and seminars, an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, and a sessional lecturer at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto.

Grace Ajele (she/her) is a lawyer working in Mohkinstsis as Membership and Compliance Counsel at the Law Society of Alberta. Prior to this, she practiced in the area of domestic violence family law before proposing and piloting the Pre-Apprehension Child Welfare project at Calgary Legal Guidance. The first of its kind in Alberta, this project offers free legal advice to Albertans facing Children’s Services involvement in the pre-apprehension stages, in the hopes that such support could help prevent the need for apprehension.

Grace is deeply committed to anti-oppressive approaches to the practice of law, and is passionate about using law as a tool to affirm human dignity. She enjoys many opportunities to invest in the legal community, including through her work on the Executive Committee of Alberta’s chapter of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers (CABL) and as a board member at the Family Advocacy Support Centre (FASC).

Florence Ashley (they/them) is a transfeminine jurist and bioethicist. They are currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. They hold BCL/JD and LLM degrees from McGill University and an SJD from the University of Toronto. 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 across 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. She held the Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession from 2020-2024. 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. Natasha’s research interests are generally in law, culture and minority rights and specifically in the intersecting area of religious freedom and women’s equality. Her research on the niqab analyzes the unwarranted popular panic concerning Muslim women who cover their faces and explores systemic barriers to inclusion perpetuated by Canada’s legal and political system. Her book In Your Face: Law Justice and Niqab-Wearing Women in Canada was listed in the Hill Times 100 Best Books of 2020 and received the 2020-2021 Huguenot Society of Canada Award. She has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v NS, 2012 SCC 72, a case involving a niqab-wearing sexual assault complainant. In the area of family law, she has co-written a textbook entitled Families and the Law, 4th ed (Concord: Captus Press Inc, 2024) and has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in the cases of Michel v Graydon, 2020 SCC 24 and Colucci v Colucci, 2021 SCC 24, both involving claims of historic child support. 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 an award-winning dancer and choreographer.

Gillian Bourke is a non-practicing lawyer living in Yellowknife. 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 holds 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.

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.

Maria Dugas is an Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. She teaches African Nova Scotian Legal History and Issues & Critical Race Theory, Tort Law and Damage Compensation, Copyright Law, Legal Research and Writing, coaches the Isaac Moot team, and guest lectures on anti-Black racism in the criminal justice system. She is the co-editor of the Canarian Journal of Law and Technnology.

Professor Dugas holds a JD and LL.M from Dalhousie University and is a proud graduate of the Indigenous Blacks and Mi’kmaq Initiative.

She was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 2016 after articling in the Youth Criminal Justice Office at Nova Scotia Legal Aid in Halifax. In 2017, Professor Dugas became the first African Nova Scotian to clerk at the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.

Her research interests are rooted in critical race legal theory, most recently addressing issues of anti-Black racism in the criminal justice system and professional sport. Professor Dugas is a 2022 recipient of Dalhousie’s Belong Research Fellowship award. Her project looks to address the presence and effect of anti-Black racism in the child welfare system in Nova Scotia.

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.