Constitutional Litigator in Residence

Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence for 2020

Posted on by Tal Schreier

Nader Hasan has been selected as the Asper Centre Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence for Fall 2020.

Nader’s wealth of constitutional litigation experience in areas ranging from search and seizure law to digital privacy law to protecting civil liberties, as well as his vast teaching experience will greatly enrich the Asper Centre’s Clinic students next term.

Nader is a partner at Stockwood Barristers in Toronto. He practises criminal, regulatory and constitutional law at the trial and appellate levels. He has an expertise in digital privacy law and search and seizure law, and has appeared in many of the leading cases in this area.

Nader has been recognized by Best Lawyers magazine as one of Canada’s leading appellate lawyers.  He has appeared in 20 cases at the Supreme Court of Canada, including as lead counsel to the successful appellants in Clyde River v. Petroleum Geo‑Services Inc., 2017 SCC 40, a landmark Indigenous rights decision.

Nader is a veteran Adjunct Professor of law at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, where he has taught the Law of Evidence and currently teaches a popular class on crime and punishment. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights. He is a co-author of Sentencing, 9th edition (LexisNexis, 2017), a co-author and co-editor of Digital Privacy: Criminal, Civil and Regulatory Litigation (LexisNexis, 2018), a co-author of a forthcoming book on Search and Seizure (Emond Publishing), and author of numerous articles on criminal and constitutional law.

Nader brings a cross-border perspective to his practice. He previously practised with a leading litigation firm in New York, appearing in both New York State and U.S. federal courts.  Today, he regularly advises Canadian citizens in relation to criminal and regulatory issues with a multi-jurisdictional dimension, and regularly advises Canadians detained abroad.

Nader acts regularly for clients seeking to vindicate their constitutional rights in high-profile cases.  He has acted for the wrongfully convicted and asylum seekers.  He acts for Indigenous groups and environmental NGOs in environmental and constitutional cases.  He also acts for civil liberties groups, including the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA), the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), and the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights.

Nader is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A.), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil), and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (J.D.).  Upon graduation from law school, Nader clerked for the Honourable Marshall Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada.

View the Asper Centre’s past Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence HERE.

Meeting Susan Ursel, the Asper Centre’s next Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence

Posted on by Student

By Sara Tatelman

When you walk into the waiting room at labour law firm Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP, you’re greeted by large black-and-white photographs of Canadians at work and, in silver sans-serif type mounted on the back wall, an unattributed quote: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it.”

As we sit down, senior partner Susan Ursel readily tells me the photographs were taken by Toronto documentarian Vincenzo Pietropaolo, and the quote is from Karl Marx.  “[Partner] Gary Hopkinson is our resident philosopher … and he came up with that one,” she says. “It seems so apt because we don’t want to just study the world — we are actually here to contribute to it.”

Ursel, who will serve as the Asper Centre’s Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence for the 2018-19 year, has tried to change the world since she was in high school. “I used to picket my local Dominion store and ask people not to buy grapes and to support Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in their struggle for recognition,” she says. “… I could see how difficult it was for some people to make their own way, to be successful, and we see it even more today. And I just thought, that’s a kind of work that I can see applying myself to … and feeling that I’m adding something to the world. And that became my pole star and what I followed all the way through undergrad and then law school.”

Throughout her career, Ursel has represented a wide variety of unions and individuals on labour, employment and human rights issues. Recently, she intervened for the Canadian Bar Association in Trinity Western University v. The Law Society of Upper Canada. “I think it’s problematic to view any rights in an absolutist way, and I think we have to be very careful about the concept of religious freedom,” she says. “… We’ve prided ourselves on being welcoming to everyone, and when an institution asks to be recognized in the public square, which is what Trinity Western is asking, … [it must] engage with everybody.”

Ursel’s long history of advocating for LGBTQ+ rights — including in Egan, which confirmed sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Charter, and in XY, which established it’s discriminatory to require trans folks to have sex reassignment surgery before they can change their sex designation on their birth certificates — stems from her own experience as a lesbian lawyer who came out in the 1980s.

“There weren’t a lot of us,” she says. “And the ones who were out in the legal profession belonged to something called the Other Lawyers Association. We didn’t have email. We had telephone trees and letters in brown paper wrappers with no identifying marks on the outside to invite each other to parties.”

One year, Ursel hosted a Christmas party for other LGBTQ+ lawyers. “I couldn’t get the guys to leave!” she remembers, laughing. “They were so happy. … There was no place to go and be themselves and talk amongst their peers and they were having just a really wonderful time. I remember thinking, ‘They’re not going home. I’m going to find some of them on the living room floor tomorrow morning.’”

At the Asper Centre this fall, Ursel will co-teach the constitutional litigation clinic. This typically involves intervening on a Charter case at the Supreme Court, and preparing an advocacy brief on another constitutional issue.

Ursel is especially keen to meet and mentor students. When she was in law school at Osgoode Hall, she took a constitutional litigation course that was “absolutely formative” for her career. While the professor was more conservative than Ursel, she gave very specific feedback on students’ ideas and arguments, and wasn’t stingy with praise.

“That kind of affirmation from somebody with a different viewpoint than you has so much power,” Ursel says. “So I know I’m going to meet people from all walks of life in this program, with all different viewpoints, but I’m hoping I can give them something of what [my professor] gave to me. Even if I don’t see it exactly the same way as you, I will tell you when you’re doing a good job. I will tell you what I think you can do better. I will engage with you on tough issues and talk about them because I care passionately about them and I want the next generation to care passionately too, and to engage in the kind of civil debate we have in this country.”

Sara Tatelman is the Asper Centre’s 2018 summer research assistant.

Susan Ursel chosen as Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence for fall 2018

Posted on by Student

The Faculty of Law’s David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is pleased to announce that lawyer Susan Ursel will be the Asper Centre’s Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence for the fall 2018.

Ursel, a Toronto-based employment and human rights lawyer, will be teaching constitutional advocacy in the Asper Centre clinic during the fall term. Drawing upon her extensive experience from her constitutional, human rights and administrative law practice, she will mentor students on the case files that they will be working on in the clinic.

“Susan Ursel’s wealth of litigation experience and work in the human rights field, especially in seeking equality rights, will add an exciting dimension to the clinic this coming term,” says executive director Cheryl Milne.

Susan Ursel says, “I am very much anticipating the exciting and fascinating work with the Asper Centre this year. Constitutional issues and litigation have been a passion of mine for many years and I am honoured to be doing this work with the Asper Centre which is renowned for its constitutional expertise and for its exceptional educational programs. My thanks to the Centre for inviting me to work with them.”

Former Asper Centre Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence John Norris Appointed to Federal Court

Posted on by Tal Schreier

 

John Norris, the Asper Centre’s former Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence in 2006 and Asper Centre Advisory Group member, who served as counsel for the Asper Centre in a number of our interventions, has been appointed a justice to the Federal Court of Canada.

A sole practitioner based in Toronto, he fills a new position created under An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act (S.C. 2010, c. 8).  An established trial and appellate lawyer, in criminal, constitutional and national security law, Norris was appointed in 2008 to the roster of Special Advocates for security certificate proceedings under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and acted as Special Advocate in a lengthy and complex security certificate proceeding before the Federal Court.

Deeply committed to legal education, Norris has also been an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law since 1996, teaching criminal law, evidence, constitutional law, national security law, and legal ethics courses.

Read the full announcement here.