Kate Stephenson is Director of Legal Services at the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, on leave from WeirFoulds LLP in Toronto, where she is a partner. She has a diverse civil litigation practice including constitutional, administrative, commercial, estates, human rights and employment law. She has argued before all levels of court in Ontario, the Federal Court of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada, and she has been co-counsel in constitutional challenges involving sections
2, 7, 8, 12 and 15 of the Charter.

Kate attended law school at the University of Toronto, where she was the Director of the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples student legal clinic. She articled at the fi rm Scott & Aylen and was called to the Bar in 1996. She moved to Weirfoulds LLP in 1998. She was the fi rst person to work as the “Resident Barrister” at the Clinic Resource Offi ce in Toronto (on secondment from WeirFoulds LLP, 2002-2004). In this position she acted as counsel, mentor and advisor to lawyers in Ontario’s 79 Community Legal Clinics, particularly in matters involving the Charter, and in appeals and judicial reviews of decisions by statutory tribunals.

Kate was the first person to be awarded the Advocates Society’s Arleen Goss Young Advocate’s Award, inaugurated in 2004 to recognize a lawyer who has been engaged in practice for less than 10 years, and who has a record of innovative, passionate advocacy, and concern for social justice. She is a past co-chair of the National Legal Committee of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Income Security Advocacy Centre, in Toronto, and is a member of the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues.