Board of Governors

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Board of Governors2024-03-04T20:52:35+00:00

The Board of Governors, comprised of representatives of the founding partners and at-large members, determines policy for the LCO and approves projects, discussion papers and reports, among other responsibilities. Governors serve for three years.

Current members of the Board of Governors

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Raj Anand (Chair)

Raj joined the LCO Board of Governors in 2014 and was appointed Chair effective April 16, 2020. He is a partner with WeirFoulds LLP who acts as a mediator, arbitrator or counsel in civil, administrative and regulatory litigation. He is a former Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario and current adjudicator and adjunct Law Professor in professional ethics and administrative law. Raj has worked with the Law Reform Commissions of Ontario and Canada.

 Previous Work Experience:

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Neha Chugh

Neha Chugh joined the LCO Board of Governors in January 2021 and is the appointee of the Law Foundation of Ontario.

Neha is a criminal defence lawyer practicing in Eastern Ontario since 2011, and since 2014 has been the owner and managing partner of Chugh Law Professional Corporation.

Neha graduated from the University of Waterloo with honours degrees in Sociology and Social Work, a Masters of Science from the University of Guelph in Planning, and a juris doctorate from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.  Neha is currently working on a PhD from Concordia University under the supervision of Dr. Martin French focusing on problem solving courts, therapeutic justice, and access to justice.

Following law school and her articles with the Honourable Justice David Berg and defence lawyer Gerald Logan, she joined Dotsikas Hawtin in Ottawa where she worked for two years before setting up Chugh Law Professional Corporation in Cornwall. Neha’s focus is primarily on conducting effective trials and managing fair resolutions, with a specific focus on youth and adult mental health, litigation, and research. She has conducted a wide range of judge-alone and jury trials including break and enters, sexual assaults, assaults, mischiefs, drinking and driving, and cases in front of various tribunals in Ontario.

Neha also serves as the prosecutor in the Akwesasne Court, assists with provincial offences prosecutions with the City of Cornwall, and is an instructor at Iohahi:io Akwesasne Education & Training Institute.  Neha serves as the chair of the board of the Centre York Centre supervised access facility in Cornwall, on the community editorial board of the Cornwall Standard Freeholder, and on the board of directors of CUREA/CURET – an organization founded to address systemic racism in local institutions.  In her spare time, Neha can be found playing board games with her kids or taking walks with her mom squad.

       

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Trevor Farrow

Dean Trevor Farrow joined the LCO Board of Governors in September 2023 and is the appointee of Osgoode Hall Law School.

Trevor C.W. Farrow, AB (Princeton), BA/MA (Oxford), LLB (Dalhousie), LLM (Harvard), PhD (Alberta), is the Dean and a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He is the Chair of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice and was the founding Academic Director of the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution and former Director of the York Centre for Public Policy and Law. Professor Farrow is internationally recognized as a leading scholar on access to justice, legal process and the profession. His scholarship is widely published in Canada and internationally. He has taught and lectured at universities across Canada and around the world. Professor Farrow has received teaching awards from Harvard University and Osgoode Hall Law School. Professor Farrow was formerly a litigation lawyer in Toronto.

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Elizabeth Grace

Elizabeth joined the LCO Board of Governors as a member-at-large in June 2018.  She is a partner of Lerners LLP and based in its Toronto office, where she practices civil litigation and administrative law.

Career  

  • Partner, Lerners LLP (2001 to present)
  • Associate lawyer, Lerners LLP (1995-2001)
  • Clerk to former Chief Justice of Canada, Antonio Lamer, Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa (1993-1994)
  • Summer student, Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped (ARCH), Toronto (1993); Attorney General for Ontario, Constitutional Division, Toronto (1992); Blake, Cassels & Graydon, Toronto (1991)

Achievements

  • Selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in Canada for Personal Injury Litigation (2016-2018)
  • Panellist on #AfterMeToo Civil Roundtable, Globe and Mail, December 2017
  • Plenary Panellist – “More Help and Better Supports for Survivors in the Community”, It’s Never Okay Summit on Sexual Violence and Harassment, Toronto, November 2015
  • Co-Presenter of “Returning Ontario to the Forefront of the Effort to Eradicate Sexual Violence and Harassment” submission to Select Committee on Sexual Violence and Harassment, Legislative Assembly of Ontario, First Session, 41st Parliament, Official Report of Debates (Hansard), No. SV-15 (13 May 2015)
  • Recognized as one of Canada’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers for her commitment to advocating on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, Canadian Lawyer Magazine, 2014
  • Recipient of the Women’s Law Association of Ontario President’s Award, June 2014
  • Recipient of Lexpert Zenith Award for Leading Women Lawyers, 2013
  • Member of working group that drafted Guide for the Provision of Legal Services in Cases Involving Claims of Sexual Abuse, approved by the Equity and Aboriginal Issues Committee of the Law Society of Ontario and adopted by Convocation on January 26, 2012.
  • Member of Ontario Bar Association’s Working Group on McMurtry Victim Compensation Review, representing OBA’s Feminist Legal Analysis (FLAC) Section, 2008
  • Speaker at Law Society of Ontario’s “Special Lectures 2005: The Modern Law of Damages”, Toronto, April 20-21, 2005
  • Co-author, Civil Liability for Sexual Abuse and Violence in Canada (Butterworths, 2000)
  • Member and on Board of Directors, National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), (1995 to 2000)

Education

  • L.L.B., Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (1993)
  • M.Phil., University of Sussex, England (1989)
  • B.A. (Honours), Queen’s University (1987)

Called to Ontario Bar

  • 1995
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Jula Hughes

Jula Hughes joined the Board of Governors in 2020 as the representative for the Law Deans of Ontario. She is the dean of the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University.

Previous Work Experience

  • Professor of Law, University of New Brunswick (2006-2019)
  • Lawyer, Caroline Engelmann Gottheil Ottawa (1999-2006)
  • Law Clerk, Supreme Court of Canada (1999-2000)

Achievements

  • University Research Scholar, University of New Brunswick 2018
  • Principal Investigator, “Looking Out For Each Other” project in partnership with the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council
  • Award for Teaching Excellence, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick 2016
  • CAUT Distinguished Service Award 2010
  • Published numerous articles on judicial ethics, comparative constitutional law and Indigenous settler relations

Education

  • LL. B., University of Ottawa, Common Law Section 1999
  • Ph. D. Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany 1996
  • M.A. Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen 1990

Called to Ontario Bar

  • 2000
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Randall Kahgee

Randall Kahgee joined the LCO Board of Governors as a member-at-large in January 2021.  He is Senior Counsel with Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP and specializes in indigenous rights law, with an emphasis on community-based processes and government-to-government negotiations

Randall served as Chief of the Saugeen First Nation for four consecutive terms from June 2006 to June 2014.  He has worked with First Nation governments across Canada and participated in significant agreements between First Nation communities and provincial and federal governments on energy matters, including issues relating to the development of nuclear facilities, transmission lines, wind energy projects, as well as environmental matters.  He has extensive experience in consultation and accommodation related issues and has also been involved in the negotiation and implementation of land claim and self-government agreements and participated in a number of successful impact benefit negotiations. He has also advised First Nations on a range of governance related issues.  Randall received his BA (Hon) from York University and his LLB from the University of Toronto.

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Shalini Konanur

Shalini Konanur joined the LCO Board of Governors in January 2021 and is the appointee of the Law Society of Ontario.

Shalini has worked in Ontario’s legal aid clinic system for her entire career (over 20 years).  At SALCO, Shalini provides direct legal service in a number of areas of poverty law, appears routinely in the clinic’s test case work at all levels of court including the Supreme Court of Canada, and does extensive advocacy on human rights issues at the domestic and international level.  SALCO and Shalini are a leading voice on the issues that impact low-income and racialized South Asian communities in Canada, including poverty, systemic racism, Islamophobia, religious discrimination, gender-based violence, and immigration reform.

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Jane Mallen

Jane Mallen joined the LCO Board of Governors in September 2020 and is the appointee of the Ministry of the Attorney General.  She is currently the Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the Policy Division at the Ministry of the Attorney General.

As Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the Policy Division, Jane oversees a large and varied portfolio that includes: the Justice Policy Branch, which leads the Ministry’s law reform priorities and supports the administration of over 140 statutes; the Agency and Tribunal Relations Branch, which manages the Ministry’s relationship with several tribunals and agencies in the justice sector including Tribunals Ontario, Ontario Land Tribunals, Legal Aid Ontario, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and Ontario’s police oversight agencies; the Program Modernization and Appointments Branch, which administers the Ministry’s public appointments process for judicial officers and Order-in-Council members of agencies and tribunals, administers  non-lawyer notaries and commissioners applications and provides program support to the Judicial Appointments Advisory and Justices of the Peace Appointments Advisory Committees; and the Legalization of Cannabis Branch, which is responsible for Ontario’s policy and legislative framework for recreational cannabis.

Prior to assuming the ADAG role in January 2020, Jane was Executive Advisor and Chief Legal Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Prior to joining the Deputy’s office, Jane worked for many years in MAG’s Civil Law Division. During this time, she served in a number of roles, including as Portfolio Director for the “Indigenous, Lands and Resources” legal services portfolio, Legal Director at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Deputy Director roles at the Ministry of Labour and Crown Law Office – Civil.  Jane started her legal career as counsel at the Ministry of Labour providing advice primarily in the areas of employment, workplace safety and insurance and administrative law.  Jane completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario and her law degree at the University of British Columbia. She was called to the Bar in 1998.

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The Honourable Bradley W. Miller

The Honourable Bradley W. Miller joined the LCO Board of Governors in January 2024 and is the judicial appointee.

Justice Miller was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2015. Prior to his initial appointment to the Superior Court of Justice, he was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Western Ontario. He held appointments at Princeton University as a visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy and a visiting fellow in the Department of Politics. He was also a visiting fellow in the Department of Law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

He was called to the bars of Ontario and British Columbia and practiced commercial and constitutional litigation in Toronto.

Justice Miller holds a doctoral degree in law from the University of Oxford and an LL.M. (magna cum laude) from the University of Edinburgh, in addition to degrees in law and commerce from the University of British Columbia. He has published numerous scholarly articles on judicial reasoning and constitutional interpretation, and is an author of Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights through Legislation: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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Michael Tamblyn

Michael Tamblyn joined the Board of Governors as a member-at-large, as of September 1, 2018. He is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Rakuten Kobo.

Driving growth, profitability and international expansion in a fiercely competitive market, he combines a passion for reading with a deep focus on the hardware and software experiences that can make a customer’s reading life better. A passionate and engaging presenter and commentator, Michael speaks internationally on digital media, publishing and mobile technology and has been featured in The New Yorker, Wired, Canadian Business, National Post, Globe and Mail and The New York Times. Additionally, he oversees Rakuten’s other eReading businesses including OverDrive, the world leader in ebook services for libraries, and Aquafadas, a world leader in interactive publishing. Michael has been a part of Rakuten Kobo’s executive team since its inception in 2009, and previously held the role of Chief Content Officer. Prior to joining Kobo, Michael was the founding CEO of the supply chain agency, BookNet Canada and co-founded Canada’s first online bookstore, Bookshelf.ca, purchased by Indigo Books & Music in 1998 to create Indigo.ca, where he served as VP of Online Operations. Michael holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario. A longtime musician, he holds a degree in classical composition from Wilfred Laurier University.

Past Members

Mark L. Berlin (2012 — 2018)
Gwen Boniface (2011 — 2014)
Paul Boniferro (2018)
Christopher D. Bredt (2008 — 2014)
Camille Cameron (2014 — 2015)
Linda Cardinal (2018 — 2020)
Mary Condon (2018 — 2023)
Nathalie Des Rosiers (2009 — 2013)
Adam Dodek (2011 — 2014)
Bruce Elman (2012 — 2019)
The Honourable J. Michal Fairburn (2018 — 2020)
Neil Finkelstein (2007 — 2008)
William Flanagan (2009)
Irwin Glasberg (2017 — 2020)
The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge (2009 — 2021)
Neena Gupta (2007 — 2012)
Marie Henein (2007 — 2009)
Ian Holloway (2009 — 2012)
The Honourable Frank Iacobucci (2007 — 2012)
The Honourable Russell Juriansz (2008 — 2009)
The Honourable Harry S. LaForme (2014 – 2018)
Mark Leach (2012)
Yves LeBouthillier (2007 — 2008)
Jinyan Li (2009 — 2010)
The Honourable James MacPherson (2007 — 2008)
Patrick J. Monahan (2012 — 2017)
Sonia Ouellet (2013 — 2021)
Maria Páez Victor (2012 — 2018)
Genevieve Painchaud (2020 — 2023)
Andrew Pinto (2012 — 2020)
The Honourable Paul S. Rouleau (2020 — 2023)
Murray D. Segal (2007 — 2012)
Lorne Sossin (2010 — 2018)
Christopher Waters (2016 — 2020)

Board Chairs

Patrick J. Monahan, 2007 — 2009
Larry Banack, 2009 — 2012
Bruce Elman, 2012 — 2018
Andrew Pinto, 2018 — 2020
Raj Anand, 2020 — Present