📰 New Chair and Director Appointments for CanLII

We are excited to announce the appointment of Professor Adam Dodek, Crystal O’Donnell, Shannon Salter, and Thomas Schonhoffer, Q.C. to the CanLII board, as well as the nomination of Dominic Jaar, Ad. E. as chair.

We are sure you will agree that the quality of these appointments reflects highly on the credibility of CanLII and the continued relevance of its mission 15 years after we started publishing legal information online. Our new team members are already very involved in our activities, and we can confirm that their credentials are rivaled only by their energy and enthusiasm.

Please join us in extending congratulations to our new directors and chair!

We also want to thank our exiting directors: Johanne Blenkin, Professor Michael Geist, Brian McLaughlin, and Diana Miles for their excellent service on the CanLII board and for their immense contribution to the cause of free access to law. The legal community owes them a great deal.

In addition, we salute the extraordinary contribution of Dr. Martin Felsky as CanLII chair. To serve on a board (a volunteer board, we should add) already requires a significant time investment: to act as chair is not in the same ballpark. Martin has been extremely generous with his time and expertise in the previous years. Fortunately, he has agreed to stay as a director for at least another year to help with the transition.

Lastly, thanks to David Swayze who presided over the Federation of Law Societies’ “CanLII Nominating Committee” during this important recruitment project. David gave a lot of time to this work, and his contribution allows us to ensure the Canadian legal community that CanLII will continue to be governed by an unrivaled team of experts.

With these changes, the composition of our board is now as follows:

Dominic Jaar, Ad. E. Chair	Dominic is a Partner and the National Leader of Forensic Technology Services at KPMG LLP, which includes evidence and discovery management, digital evidence recovery, records and information management, data analytics, and cyber investigations. Dominic and his team support private and public organizations’ legal, investigation, inspection, records management, compliance, risk, and IT departments with their information-related needs. Dominic also leads the Regulatory Global Strategic Initiative for Canada. Dominic teaches discovery methodology at the Université Laval in the Programme civil de formation des enquêteurs de l’administration publique québécoise. He is a sought-after speaker on topics such as electronic discovery, legal technology, and information management at different North American universities (such as Georgetown, McGill, Cardozo, Ottawa, and Montreal) and international conferences. He has been recognized for a third year in a row as one of Canada’s leading lawyers in information technology by the global magazine Who’s Who Legal, as well as being one of the world’s top digital forensic experts. Dominic is also an Advocatus Emeritus (Ad.E,) and earned the Merit-Innovation, two of the highest recognitions offered by the Quebec Bar.
Professor Adam Dodek, LSM	Adam Dodek is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. He is a graduate of McGill, Harvard Law School, and the University of Toronto, and a member of the bars of Ontario and California. He has clerked for the Supreme Courts of Canada and Israel, and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He worked in private practice in San Francisco and Toronto before joining the Office of the Attorney General of Ontario where he served as senior policy advisor and then as chief of staff. Dodek is a writer and a commentator on the regulation of the legal profession, legal ethics, and constitutional law. He is one of the founders of the University of Ottawa’s Public Law Group, and of the Canadian Association of Legal Ethics (CALE) and currently serves as CALE’s vice-president. He is the vice-chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Ethics Committee, a member of the Ontario Bar Association Council, and past governor of the Law Commission of Ontario. In 2014, Canadian Lawyer included Dodek in their list of Canada’s Most Influential Lawyers, and in 2015 the Law Society of Upper Canada awarded him its Law Society Medal for outstanding achievement.
Dr. Martin Felsky	Martin Felsky is National E-Discovery Counsel at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. He is responsible for implementing best practices in e-discovery and leads their large and diverse National Discovery Services team of case managers and specialists. Martin was recognized in the 2015 Who’s Who Legal as the “dean of e-discovery lawyers in Canada”. Martin has advised clients and counsel in all types of legal proceedings including commercial litigation, class actions, arbitrations, investigations, and public inquiries. Martin helped draft the “Sedona Canada Principles”, which are referenced in the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, and has worked with courts in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Manitoba to develop electronic discovery rules in civil litigation. He is an active member of the Ontario E-Discovery Implementation Committee. Martin’s range of expertise includes all legal, strategic, and technical aspects of e-discovery, which is quickly emerging as a critical element in evidence-based processes. Martin has educated lawyers, judges, and business executives across Canada, the United States, Europe, and South Africa on e-discovery and litigation technology. He is also a trusted adviser to the public and private sectors on the admissibility of electronic business records and is uniquely pre-qualified as an imaging auditor for the Government of Alberta. His years of hands-on entrepreneurial experience with ground-breaking e-discovery projects allow him to provide clients with practical, cost-effective solutions to the challenges of compliance and document production. At BLG Martin led the transformation of Discovery Services in 2015-2016 to introduce and support the firm’s new, robust Relativity platform.
Marion Fraser, CPA-CA, MBA	Marion Fraser is currently the Vice President Finance, Administration and Infrastructure, and Chief Financial Officer for the Heart Institute, and its related entities – the Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation. Her current portfolio of responsibilities in addition to those of CFO includes cardiac imaging, biomedical engineering, health and safety, and research administration, as well as overall responsibility for the Life Support Capital project which when completed will represent a significant expansion to the Institute’s infrastructure. Marion joined the Institute in the fall of 2006 after more than 25 years spent in London, Ontario, with Ernst & Young, the Ivey family, and Robarts Research Institute, an independent biomedical research institute in London, Ontario, affiliated with the University of Western Ontario and London Health Sciences Centre. Marion completed her Master of Business Administration at the Richard Ivey School of Business in 2001, and obtained her CA designation in Montreal in 1979 after graduating with a Diploma in Accountancy and Bachelor of Commerce with a major in accountancy from Concordia University in Montreal.
Crystal O’Donnell	Crystal O’Donnell is the founder of Heuristica Discovery Counsel Professional Corporation, a law firm, where her practice focuses solely on electronic discovery. She provides legal advice and solutions to governments and public bodies, private corporations, and law firms respecting electronic information and the discovery process. Previously litigation counsel with a leading litigation firm and the Ministry of the Attorney General in Ontario, Crystal has represented clients in a number of complex matters at all levels of the Ontario courts as well as in regulatory proceedings and investigations. She has taken an active role in the advancement of e-discovery in Canada, and is the co-chair of a Uniform Law Conference of Canada Working Group, developing proposed harmonized electronic document rules for civil and administrative proceedings. Crystal is also member of Sedona Canada and the Ontario E-Discovery Implementation Committee.
Shannon Salter	Shannon Salter is the Chair of the Civil Resolution Tribunal, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, Allard School of Law, teaching administrative law and legal ethics. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (2001) and Bachelor of Laws (2005) from the University of British Columbia, and her Master of Laws from the University of Toronto (2011). Ms. Salter clerked with the British Columbia Supreme Court, practiced litigation at a large Vancouver law firm for several years, and has served as a vice chair of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal. Ms. Salter is also a commissioner of the Financial Institutions Commission, vice president of the British Columbia Council of Administrative Tribunals, and a past board member of the College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia. She is co-author of the BC Administrative Decision Maker’s Manual and has actively been involved in providing pro bono legal advice and representation throughout her career.
Tom Schonhoffer, Q.C.	Thomas Schonhoffer, Q.C. joined the Law Society of Saskatchewan in 1994 as Counsel for Saskatchewan Lawyers’ Insurance Association Inc. He concentrated on profession negligence litigation and has appeared in all levels of court. In 2007, he was appointed Executive Director of the Law Society of Saskatchewan and worked with the Benchers to bring modern policy governance practices to professional regulation. During this period the Society made substantial progress in furthering its public interest mandate. Legal information is the biggest department of the Law Society of Saskatchewan and operates sixteen libraries across the province. In 2016 he was appointed Chair of the Automobile Injury Appeal Commission. Tom sits on many advisory boards including Canadian Lawyer’s Insurance Association, Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board, and the Canadian Center for Professional Legal Education. He has made numerous presentations for the Canadian Bar Association, Saskatchewan Legal Education, and for the Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) Bar Admission Program. Tom holds a Bachelor of Laws from Queen’s University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Arts from the University of Regina. Tom received his Queen’s Counsel designation in 2005.