Steps to Success: Building Foundation & Finding Mentors

For more than 135 years, the Toronto Lawyers' Association, located within the Courthouse Library, has represented the interests of lawyers practising in the City of Toronto. The association was founded to support its members in three key areas: Knowledge, Advocacy, and Community. To uphold these pillars, the association offers a year-round mix of online and in-person education programs for lawyers, hosts both free and paid events to foster in-person networking, and submits advocacy pieces on behalf of its members to the Ontario bench and bar, all levels of government, and the broader public.

Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice (Ontario) . She was first appointed to the bench in 2000. On December 21, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced her appointment as Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, replacing the Honourable Frank Marrocco.

Gina Nardella is a partner at Kostyniuk & Greenside. She obtained her Law Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2006 with a certificate in Litigation, Dispute Resolution and the Administration of Justice. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 2007 after articling with Kostyniuk & Greenside. Since then, she has practiced in both civil and criminal litigation, having appeared before the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, Financial Services Commission of Ontario, the Ontario Review Board and the Licence Appeal Tribunal. Her practice is now focused on insurance defence litigation.

Experienced Associate Lawyer with a demonstrated history of working in the law practice industry. Skilled in Legal Advocacy, Research, Writing, Litigation, Legal Advice, and Leadership.

The inaugural dean of the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University, Donna E. Young has more than two decades of experience in the legal academy committed to fostering diversity and social justice in law. Her teaching and scholarship focus on law and inequality, race and gender discrimination, and academic freedom and university governance. She has taught courses in Criminal Law, Employment Law, Federal Civil Procedure, Gender and Work, and Race, Rape Culture, and Law. Dean Young is much sought after as a speaker and has been invited to present her work at conferences and other venues around the world. She has been a Fellow at Cornell Law School's Gender, Sexuality, and Family Project, a Visiting Scholar at Osgoode Hall Law School's Institute of Feminist Legal Studies, an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School, and a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Law at Roma Tre University. She has also been a consultant to the International Development Law Organization for whom she traveled to Uganda to conduct field research on the relationship between gender inequality and law in the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Prior to her appointment as the inaugural dean of the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University, she was the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School and a joint faculty member in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University at Albany. She has been a staff member at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance, in Washington, D.C. and was a member of the AAUP's Committee A, the preeminent national body setting standards and investigating academic freedom disputes in the United States. She has worked at Cornish Roland in Toronto, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and the Legal Department of the City of New York, Mayor's Office of Labor Relations. She is admitted to practice in New York State.