ÉDUCALOI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Lawyer
Ariane Charbonneau has been Executive Director of Éducaloi since 2017. A lawyer with an MBA from HEC Montréal, this entrepreneur took over the reins of the organization after working for nearly five years as Assistant Executive Director, from 2012 to 2017.
Driven by the excellence of a diverse team of professionals, she is committed to fostering and contributing to the development of the legal skills of the population of Quebec through public legal education and clear legal communication.
Ariane is a unifying professional with contagious enthusiasm, capable of building networks, demonstrating leadership, and acting with long-term strategic vision. Her priorities include raising Éducaloi's profile and consolidating and diversifying its funding sources to ensure its sustainability.
Her exceptional career path is a testament to the strength of her professional commitment. A member of the Quebec Bar since 1993, Ariane first practiced environmental and municipal law before managing the business development of a transnational corporation in Toronto and then in Montreal.
Elected president of the Young Bar of Montreal in 1998, she joined the Bar of Montreal's Board of Directors and the Quebec Bar's executive committee the following year. Concerned with social involvement in her community, she was appointed Vice-President of the National Access to Justice Committee in 2021, sat on the board of directors of Équiterre from 2013 to 2021, has been a member of the Office de la protection du consommateur since 2014. She has also served on the board of the Institut québécois de réforme du droit et de la justice since 2019. Finally, she is a member of the steering committees of the Forum québécois and the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters.
Audrey is a project coordinator. She oversees the development and planning of projects for the school world on a daily basis.
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Coordinator
Benoit joined the Éducaloi team in November 2019. He develops and coordinates a portfolio of projects aimed at different populations served by Éducaloi.
Holding a Master of Business Administration, Benoit worked in video game production for many years. As a creative director, he oversaw the realization of 25 large-scale projects aimed at all segments of the public.
Creative, resilient, and always on the lookout for better ways of doing things, Benoit contributes to developing projects and constantly adapting them to better suit the needs of the various populations served by Éducaloi.
Job Titles:
- Coordinator
- Coordinator - Web and Technology
- Paralegal
Frédéric is a paralegal and Web professional. He helps maintain Éducaloi's website and publishes legal content on various platforms.
Frédéric Dubeau, Coordinator - Web and Technology for Educaloi, is also the person in charge of the protection of personal information within the meaning of the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, CQLR c P-39.1.
For any questions, he can be contacted at the following e-mail address:
Job Titles:
- Plain Language Specialist
Guillaume coaches Éducaloi's team of legal plain language specialists and ensures their skills are up-do-date. He fosters strategic thinking and improved work practices, while ensuring that the team explains the law in everyday language.
Known for his analytical skills, rigour and versatility, Guillaume also helps public and private organizations simplify their legal communications. He trains and gives conferences to legal professionals and the public. Being a good communicator, he often explains the law in the media.
Guillaume is committed to improving access to justice. These are some of his achievements:
He wrote and updated these Protégez-Vous legal guides: an estate guide in 2016, a guide on early childhood in 2014 and a guide on consuming goods and services in 2011.
Working with the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la Jeunesse, he created a guide simplifying the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms.
He has worked with various organizations to simplify legal information documents such as contracts, forms, questionnaires, presentations, pamphlets, guides, videos and Web content, and magazine and newspaper articles.
Guillaume was admitted to the Quebec bar in 2010 and worked in labour law for the Quebec civil service. He joined Éducaloi later that year.
Job Titles:
- Customer Service Agent
- Member of the Legal Education Team
Jacob is a member of the legal education team at Éducaloi. Among other responsibilities, he manages the matching of teachers with volunteer legal professionals who lead in-class workshops.
Job Titles:
- Lawyer / Content Director
Jean-Benoit holds a degree in graphic communications from Laval University and worked as a graphic artist for many years, allowing him to hone his communication skills.
His longstanding interest in law led him to reorient his career in 2013 and enroll in law school at Université de Montréal. He became a member of the Barreau du Québec in 2017.
Jean-Benoit began his legal work as a stagiaire at Quebec legal aid in 2017 and subsequently worked there as a lawyer until 2022. During those years, he represented clients in civil and family law cases, before administrative tribunals and, starting in 2019, in criminal cases. A conscientious lawyer, ever alert to people's needs, he is strongly devoted to defending the rights of the most vulnerable among us and improving access to justice.
Jean-Benoit joined the Éducaloi team as a lawyer and plain language specialist in February 2022.
An exacting professional with strong organizational skills, Geneviève manages and supports the creation of Éducaloi's legal information and educational materials.
Geneviève is strongly committed to Éducaloi's mission and strives to make the organization's expertise known to the legal community, the education sector and the public.
Since joining Éducaloi, she has spearheaded various important projects. She has a wealth of experience as project coordinator and as head of youth and legal education programs. Geneviève helped establish Éducaloi's solid reputation among educators. She developed an important partnership with the department of education, making room for legal education in the curriculum.
Her intellectual rigour, enthusiasm and organizational strengths will ensure Éducaloi achieves its strategic goals in the long-term.
Geneviève was admitted to the Barreau du Québec in 2005 and since then, has used her passion and creativity to advance Éducaloi's mission.
Job Titles:
- Ducaloi 's Legal Education Consultant
- School Content Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Plain Language Specialist
Job Titles:
- Lawyer / Project Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Senior Plain Language Specialist
Job Titles:
- Lawyer / Chief Plain Language Specialist
- Member of the Quebec Bar
Michaël Poutré heads up Éducaloi's team of plain language specialists. He oversees their work and supports them in the further development of their skills and knowledge.
In addition to this role, Michaël is directly involved in the creation of a wide variety of legal information tools. He also provides training to judges on using plain legal language in their written decisions.
Michaël has been a member of the Quebec Bar since 2012. In addition to his law degree, he holds a diploma in multimedia arts. Michaël worked for three years as a legal researcher at the Quebec Court of Appeal before joining Éducaloi in 2015.
Job Titles:
- National Director, Talent Acquisition
Job Titles:
- Regional Director General / Department of Justice
Job Titles:
- Lawyer / Communications Advisor
- Member of the Barreau
Nathalie joined the Éducaloi team in January 2022. She develops and coordinates a diverse portfolio of projects relating to the diffusion and communication of Éducaloi contents, in addition to developing and implementing a philanthropic partnership plan.
Before joining Éducaloi, Nathalie worked mainly for public corporations and government agencies in a variety of roles, but always with the aim of doing work that mattered. Her career path reflects her intellectual curiosity, creativity and ability to put her talents to work for the benefit of others.
Nathalie's experience in governance and ethics sensitized her to the importance of promoting the autonomy of individuals in legal matters. She realized that clear legal communication is at the heart of that mission, and puts it into practice in her work.
Nathalie has been a member of the Barreau du Québec since 1998 and holds a diplôme d'étude supérieures en gestion (DESS) from HEC Montréal. She also teaches future lawyers at the École du Barreau.
Nihal creates and develops legal information and education tools for various audiences.
Nihal holds a Bachelor's degree in law and a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne University in France. During her studies, she volunteered at the Legal Clinic of the Sorbonne, a pro bono legal information service offered by students of the Sorbonne to individuals who don't have access to lawyers. She then decided to move to Quebec and followed the law equivalency program at the Université de Montréal, specifically tailored for jurists who studied abroad.
She was called to the Bar in 2020 and is on the Quebec Bar's Board of Honors for the 2019-2020 class.
Before joining Educaloi, Nihal worked in a family and civil law firm in Montreal. She then worked as an in-house lawyer for a professional order, in professional and penal law.
Nihal joined Educaloi in 2022 with the hopes of improving access to justice.
Aside from her great interest in law, Nihal is passionate about poetry and philosophy.
Richard is a plain language specialist and translator. He provides support to Anglophone community groups across Québec offering legal information to the public.
Richard holds degrees in Civil Law, Common Law and Economics from McGill University. Admitted to the Barreau du Québec in 1987, he has a wealth of experience in the community sector. Richard was Staff Lawyer at Project Genesis, a Montreal community group advocating for housing, welfare and other social rights. He also served as Coordinator of the Committee to Aid Refugees and Refugee Protection Coordinator for the Table de concertation des organismes au service de personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI).
Richard has been awarded the Médaille de St-Yves from Pro Bono Québec and the Prix Obiter Dictum from the Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l'immigration (AQAADI). He also helped establish the Just Solutions Legal Clinic of the Montreal City Mission, which promotes access to justice for migrants with precarious status, and he continues to serve as Supervising Lawyer for the Clinic.
Since May 2019, Richard has brought this commitment to social justice, and access to justice for the vulnerable and marginalized, to the service of Éducaloi's mission.
Sarah has a long history of community involvement and extensive work experience as a lawyer, journalist and translator.
This background has given her an intimate understanding of Quebec's English-speaking communities and how to tailor Éducaloi's services to their distinct needs.
Sarah is responsible for
Job Titles:
- Plain Language Specialist
Job Titles:
- Plain Language Specialist
Job Titles:
- Communications and Marketing Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Senior Plain Language Specialist