LAW SOCIETY OF ONTARIO - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Library Assistant, Serials
Job Titles:
- Member of the LAWPRO Board
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Executive Director
- Finance
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Secretary - Treasurer
- Chartered Professional Accountant
In the role of Secretary-Treasurer, Brenda provides governance support to the Board and leadership and guidance related to the Law Society Foundation's finances as well as oversight of financial administration and stewardship of its capital resources.
Brenda is a Chartered Professional Accountant with extensive experience in the not-for-profit and public sector. As Executive Director, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of the Law Society of Ontario, she is responsible for the finance and facilities management division. Her career spans more than 30 years of varied experience in financial management, business leadership, and corporate strategy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Executive Director, Policy, Equity and External Relations
Job Titles:
- Member of the Law Foundation of Ontario Board
- Vice - Chair
- Co - Chair )
Job Titles:
- Manager Research and User Services
Job Titles:
- Member of the Law Society Foundation Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Ex Officio
Job Titles:
- Member of the Law Society Foundation Board of Trustees
- Co - Chair )
Doug Wellman was appointed a Lay Bencher in 2019 and is an adjudicator in the Hearing & Appeal Divisions of the Law Society Tribunal. He is a founder of Wellman Financial and since 1971 has assisted individuals and corporations with estate planning, employee benefits and pensions. He has served as a Municipal Councillor in the City of Pickering, Board Member & Treasurer at Ajax-Pickering Hospital, Campaign Chair Ajax-Pickering United Way and a Paul Harris Recipient from Rotary International.
Doug enjoys summers at the family cottage on Anstruther Lake north of Peterborough and winters skiing with his grandchildren at Georgian Peaks Club on the Collingwood Escarpment. He is a strong advocate for the Lawyers Feed the Hungry program urging fellow Benchers and whomever will listen to lend their support to such a phenomenal program.
Job Titles:
- Lawyer / Journalist / Paleontologist
Some Ontario lawyers who left no lasting mark on the practice of law in the province nevertheless have reflected well on the profession by making a contribution in other areas of Canadian life. One such example is Elkanah Billings, who practised law for less than a decade before he abandoned the legal profession first for a career in journalism, before making his real mark as a geologist and paleontologist. Today he is remembered as the father of paleontology in Canada, and is famous in geological circles, although largely forgotten in legal ones.
The son of loyalists who fled New England for Upper Canada after the American Revolution, Elkanah Billings was born near Ottawa in 1820, one of nine children born to the family. Educated first locally, then at Ottawa and Potsdam, N.Y., his name was entered on the Law Society of Upper Canada's roll of students-at-law when he was 20 years old, and he was called to the Bar in 1844. He practised law in Bytown (as Ottawa was then called), and in Renfrew, a town in the Ottawa Valley.
By 1852, Billings had practically abandoned his legal practice when he was appointed editor of the Ottawa Citizen. While with the newspaper, he began to collect local fossils and to write on geological topics. He published his first paper on the new field of paleontology in 1854, and two years later founded the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, which he edited and to which he contributed prolifically. Self-taught in the natural sciences, Billings had found what became "the ruling passion of his life," according to an obituary published in the journal he had founded.
Job Titles:
- General Counsel
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
Job Titles:
- Student at the University of Toronto. She Went on to Become Prime Minister of Dominica
Eugenia Charles as a law student at the University of Toronto. She went on to become Prime Minister of Dominica.
Most of these students returned to the Caribbean after completing their legal education and several went on to achieve prominence in their countries of origin. For example, Eugenia Charles was the first woman lawyer in Dominica, and the first woman Prime Minister of that country, a position she held from 1980 to 1995. Telford Georges was gold medalist in 1947, and went on to serve as Chief Justice of Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Bahamas. Noor Hassanali became President of Trinidad and Tobago and Louis Fox became a judge on the Jamaican Court of Appeal.
Job Titles:
- Vice - Chair
- Co - Chair )
Job Titles:
- Member of the Law Foundation of Ontario Board
- Co - Chair )
Job Titles:
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Executive Director, Professional Regulation
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the LAWPRO Board
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees
- Chairman of the Law Society Foundation Board of Trustees
- Co - Founder of Hull
- Trustee of the Law Society Foundation
Ian Hull was appointed as a trustee of The Law Society Foundation in 2005. Mr. Hull is a co-founder of Hull and Hull LLP, a Toronto-based estate and trusts law firm. While he has been involved in several charities during his career, the Foundation is his philanthropic priority.
His commitment to service, he says, is inspired by the dozens of dedicated legal professionals across Ontario who contribute many hours of personal time and who give financial gifts to support the Lawyers Feed the Hungry Program.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Compensation Committee
- Treasurer
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the Law Society Foundation Board of Trustees
- Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees
Jonathan Rosenthal is a Toronto-based criminal defence attorney. His practice focuses on white collar matters and regulatory offences. He has appeared at every level of court in Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada.
He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School with his LLB in 1987. He is an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode, where he is Co-Director of the Trial Advocacy Program. He is also a Team Leader of the Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshop (ITAW), an annual course offered to practising lawyers by Osgoode Professional Development. He has served a similar function at the Intensive Trial Program offered to practising lawyers by the University of Moncton. He is also a Team Leader at Notre Dame Law School's Intensive Trial Advocacy Program. In addition, he is a lecturer at continuing legal education seminars offered by the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Advocates Society, Osgoode Professional Development, the Alberta Department of Justice, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Ontario Court of Justice Toronto Regional Judges' Seminar, the Ontario Court of Justices East Regional Judges' Seminar and Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences.
Mr. Rosenthal is a former Vice President of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association. He is also a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has been appointed the McMurtry Visiting Clinical Fellow as Osgoode Hall Law School for the 2018-2019 academic year.
Job Titles:
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Executive Director, Client and People Services
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Law Foundation of Ontario Board
Job Titles:
- Manager, Philanthropy & Program Operations
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Founding Partner of Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP
A founding partner of Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP, Megan Shortreed represents clients in all areas of corporate, commercial, employment, civil and administrative litigation.She is active in legal education and mentoring young lawyers. She participates regularly as a panelist and instructor at law schools and professional CLE programs. In 2014, she was the Inaugural Recipient of the Honsberger Award, presented by the Toronto Lawyers Association.
Ms. Shortreed was elected a bencher of the Law Society in 2019, and sits as an adjudicator in the Hearing Division of the Law Society Tribunal. She is a former member of the Board of the Advocates' Society. She was a Co-Chair of the Law Society's Justicia Project for the retention of women in private practice. She served for 10 years as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Homes First Foundation, a charitable organization which raises funds to break the cycle of homelessness in Toronto.
Job Titles:
- Director, Legal Information & Great Library
Job Titles:
- Vice - Chair
- Co - Chair )
- Ex Officio
Job Titles:
- Member of the CEO & Senior Management Team
- Executive Director, Professional Development and Competence
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the LAWPRO Board
Job Titles:
- Senior Reference Librarian
Job Titles:
- Member of the Compensation Committee