On November 13, 2017, David Baker will be presenting his paper, “Words of Caution for Applicant Counsel” at the Ontario Bar Association’s program, Your First Application Before the Human Rights Tribunal. Among the critical pieces of advice discussed, is the following:

Applicant counsel owes a duty to their clients to advise them that the HRTO is increasingly denying Applicants accessible justice, particularly in large or systemic cases. Clients need to be advised that a comparably increasing number of cases should proceed by way of action on application based on s.46 in part of the Human Rights Code and/or s.15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s shocking, but true, that in many cases the courts are more accessible then the HRTO. In part this is because of the client’s costs for their own counsel, additionally it is because court’s recognize public interest involved in such cases and effectively issue 1-way cost wards and finally because the court’s award significantly higher general damage awards.

The full paper is available here (link).

The session, “How to Handle the Hearing”, co-presented with Kathryn Bird of Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, will begin at 12:20PM and will address the following topics:

• Process and procedure: What to expect
• Helpful advice for how to conduct yourself
• What remedies are typically ordered?
• What if you don’t like the result?
• Reconsideration versus judicial review