Current position: Managing partner, Ontario region, McCarthy Tétrault LLP

Previous positions/firms:

Associate, McCarthy Tétrault

Law School: University of Toronto

Year called to bar: 1981

Kirby Chown joined McCarthy Tétrault in 1981 and practises in the area of civil litigation, including medical malpractice and family law. Chown served as co-counsel to the Dubin Commission into drugs and banned substances in sport and was counsel to the physicians before the Grange Commission. She has lectured to physicians and nurses throughout Ontario on a variety of health law issues.

Since becoming managing partner in 2002, she has shown an ongoing commitment to the retention and advancement of women lawyers, including pioneering innovative and active women’s initiatives within McCarthy Tétrault that support mentoring, work-life balance and profile-building, and provide a forum in which to discuss and address issues.

Prior to going to law school, Chown was a school teacher. In the last few months, she has been awarded the Law Society Medal (the Law Society of Upper Canada’s highest honour) and the Women’s Law Association of Ontario’s 2008 President’s Award.

Justice Eleanore A. Cronk

Current position: Justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, appointed July 31, 2001.

Previous positions/firms:  Partner, Lax O’Sullivan Cronk (boutique litigation firm)

Partner, Fasken Campbell Godfrey

Law school: University of Windsor

Year called to the bar: 1977

While in private practice, Justice Eleanore A. Cronk focused on general civil, administrative, environmental, commercial, insurance and health law litigation, and dispute resolution matters. Cronk has represented parties at a number of public inquries and royal commissions including the McDonald Commission on the RCMP, the Grange Commission regarding infant deaths at the Hospital for Sick Children, the Walkerton tainted-water inquiry, and the Estey Royal Commission into the collapse of the CCB and Northland Bank.

Cronk has been actively involved in the legal profession as a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada (1995-2001) as well as the president of the The Advocates Society (1992-3), and as chairwoman of the Canadian Bar Association’s national task force on systems of civil justice. She is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers. Among her other honours, Cronk is the recipient of The Advocates’ Society Medal and an honourary doctorate of civil laws from the University of Windsor.

Mayo Moran

Current position: Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Previous positions/firms:

University of Toronto Faculty of Law:

Director, Aboriginal Students' Academic Support Program at the in 1994-1995

Assistant professor, 1995,

Associate professor, 2000

Law Schools:

LLB, McGill University (1990)

LLM, University of Michigan (1992)

SJD, University of Toronto (1999).

Prof. Mayo Moran became dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2006 after three years as associate dean. She is the first female dean of the law school.

She teaches in both private and public law. Moran's work focuses on how practices and theories of responsibility come to terms with discrimination. She is currently engaged in a project on reparations theory and transitional justice that examines the limits and possibilities of law, particularly private law, in redressing widespread historic wrongdoing.  Moran has also worked on litigation involving the equality guarantee under the Charter and, most recently, the Chinese-Canadian head tax claim. 

Moran has published texts in comparative constitutional law, private law, and legal and feminist theory.  Prior to going to law school, she was a secondary-school teacher in remote areas of her native British Columbia.

Linda Rothstein

Current position: Managing partner, Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP

Previous positions/firms: Partner/associate, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP

Law school: University of Toronto

Year called to the bar: 1982

Linda Rothstein practises in the areas of civil and administrative litigation with particular expertise in class actions, commercial litigation, professional liability and misconduct, public law, employment and human rights, judicial review and appeals. She also acts as a mediator in civil and commercial litigation. Recently, she was the City of Toronto’s lead counsel at the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry.

Rothstein is actively involved in the profession as a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada and former president of The Advocates' Society (2005-6) as well as authoring several litigation-related legal texts and teaching advocacy training courses. She is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a referee for the Law Society of Upper Canada Lawyers’ Compensation Fund.

She was awarded the Law Society Medal for distinguished service to the profession in 2005. In February 2008, she was awarded the Toronto Lawyers Association Award of Distinction.

Carla Swansburg

Current position: Senior counsel, RBC Law Group

Previous positions/firms: 

Associate, Ogilvy Renault LLP

Summer student/associate, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

Law school: Dalhousie University

Year called to the bar: 1995

Carla Swansburg manages complex litigation involving Royal Bank Financial Group and many of its subsidiaries throughout the world, including RBC's network of global private banking offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She handles commercial claims and class actions relating to fraud, banking, securities, breach of contract and trust among other matters. She frequently leads or supports internal investigations. In her practice with RBC, Swansburg manages a large portfolio of claims and frequently advises business partners on litigation risk. 

Swansburgh articled with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and practised in the firm’s litigation group for several years.  She joined Ogilvy Renault’s litigation group in 2001 then joined RBC in early 2005.

She frequently speaks on topics such as ADR, privilege, litigation management, and e-discovery and is the president of the Ontario chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.