Susan Ursel
Susan Ursel is a partner with the law firm of Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP. A graduate of the University of Toronto in 1979, she received her B.A. with high honours. Subsequently, she completed her LL.B. at Osgoode Hall Law School in 1984 and was called to the Bar in 1986. Ms Ursel has practiced in the areas of labour, employment, employment equity and human rights law since then. Her work also includes the development of educational seminars and presentations for clients with respect to issues on labour, human rights and employment equity. She has also served as a nominee on arbitration panels, and in that capacity, mediated settlements on a variety of issues.
Her work has included a variety of Supreme Court of Canada appearances, including working as co-counsel for the Metropolitan Community Church: Toronto on Egan and Nesbitt, the first Supreme Court decision to deal with the equality rights of gay men and lesbians; counsel to the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation on the Trinity Western case which dealt with the issue of training teachers; and counsel to the Foundation for Equal Families in the Chamberlain case, which dealt with the educational rights of children in gay and lesbian families.
In addition, Ms. Ursel was also one of a team of lawyers who worked on the case of "Jane Doe" v. Metropolitan Toronto Police, a challenge to the police practices in Toronto regarding sexual assaults.
She has acted as complainant's counsel in a number of important human rights cases in Ontario, including the Hamilton Gay Pride Day case, the Sims case which dealt with employment rights of gay men and lesbians, the Thorton case which asserted the rights of persons with HIV/AIDS, and most recently, the human right challenge to the delisting of sex reassignment surgery.
In addition to a busy labour and human rights practice, Ms. Ursel is active in the area of pensions and benefits, providing advice and undertaking litigation with respect to pension and benefits issues. She was court appointed counsel to Air Canada union retirees in the recent Air Canada Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act proceedings.
She is a past member of the Advisory Committee to the Employment Equity Commissioner, past director and president of the Emily Stowe Shelter for Women, a past member of the Steering Committee for the Campaign for Equal Families and she is a founding Director of the Foundation for Equal Families. She was also among the founding members of the Feminist Legal Analysis Committee and the Gay and Lesbian Issues and Rights Committee of the Canadian Bar Association: Ontario, now the Ontario Bar Association. She participated as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Toronto Board of Education's Triangle Program.
Professional memberships include the Ontario Bar Association; the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers; Founding member, Coalition for the Reform of the Ontario Human Rights Commission; Founding member, the Association of Human Rights Lawyers and the National Association of Women and the Law.
Ms. Ursel was also a founding director and past member of the executive of Pro Bono Law Ontario. She has been honoured for her contribution to pro bono legal culture by the Canadian Bar Association as the first recipient of the Young Lawyer's Pro Bono Service Award, 1998. She is also an inductee in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives - Builders of Tolerance: Portraits from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives - 2000.
Susan Ursel received the Canadian Bar Association's (CBA) 2011 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Conference (SOGIC) Hero Award. Ms. Ursel received the award in recognition of her contributions in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and two-spirited (LGBTT) communities in Canada.
Papers of Interest:
Some Notes on the Experience of Working in Community with the Gay and Lesbian Communities of Ontario
Click here to view Susan Ursel's resume
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