A King's Counsel is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Queen's Counsel (QC).
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts. The Supreme Court is bijural, hearing cases from two major legal traditions and bilingual, hearing cases in both official languages of Canada.
The legal system of Canada is pluralist: its foundations lie in the English common law system, the French civil law system, and Indigenous law systems developed by the various Indigenous Nations.
Beverley Marian McLachlin is a Canadian jurist and author who served as the 17th chief justice of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the longest-serving chief justice in Canadian history and the first woman to hold the position.
Rosalie Silberman Abella is a Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retired from the federal bench in 2021.
Emmett Matthew Hall, was a Canadian lawyer, civil liberties advocate, Supreme Court of Canada judge and public policy advocate. He is considered one of the fathers of the Canadian system of Medicare, along with his fellow Saskatchewanian, Tommy Douglas.
Denise Bellamy is a Canadian judge best known for leading an inquiry into a corruption scandal in the City of Toronto government.
Alan Bernard Gold was the chief justice of the Quebec Superior Court from 1983 to 1992.
Pierre A. Michaud was a Canadian lawyer and judge. Michaud was Chief Justice of Quebec from 1994 to 2002.
The Court of King's Bench for Saskatchewan is the superior trial court for the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
Mary Ellen Elizabeth Turpel-Lafond is a Canadian lawyer and law professor. She has served as a judge and as a legislative advocate for children's rights.
Marianne Rivoalen is the Chief Justice of Manitoba. She was appointed on June 1, 2023. She is the first woman to head the Manitoba judiciary.
Calvin Murray Sinclair was a Canadian politician who was a member of the Senate, and a First Nations lawyer who served as chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015.
Harry Smith LaForme is a Canadian judge.
Delia Opekokew is a Cree lawyer and writer from the Canoe Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. She was the first First Nations woman lawyer to be admitted to the bar association in Ontario and in Saskatchewan, as well as the first woman to run for the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations. Opekokew attended Beauval Indian Residential School and Lebret Indian Residential School. She has received awards for her achievements, including the Aboriginal Achievement Award, Women's Law Association of Ontario Presidents Award, Law Society of Ontario Medal, and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Honourable Karen Merle Weiler is a retired justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada.
Jean Cuthand Goodwill OC was a Canadian Cree nurse who, in 1954, became Saskatchewan's first Aboriginal woman to finish a nursing program.
Women work in the legal profession and related occupations throughout Canada, as lawyers, prosecutors, judges, legal scholars, law professors and law school deans. In Canada, while 37.1% of lawyers are women, "50% ...said they felt their [law] firms were doing "poorly" or "very poorly" in their provision of flexible work arrangements". It was also reported that, in 2006 in Ontario, "racialized women accounted for 16% of all lawyers under 30" and that only 1% of lawyers were Aboriginal.
Marion Ironquill Meadmore is an Ojibwa-Cree Canadian activist and lawyer. Meadmore was the first woman of the First Nations to attain a law degree in Canada. She founded the first Indian and Métis Friendship Centre in Canada to assist Indigenous people who had relocated to urban areas with adjustments to their new communities. She edited the native newspaper The Prairie Call, bringing cultural events as well as socio-economic challenges into discussion for native communities. She was the only woman on the Temporary Committee of the National Indian Council, which would later become the Assembly of First Nations, and would become the secretary-treasurer of the organization when it was formalized. She was one of the women involved in the launch of the Kinew Housing project, to bring affordable, safe housing to indigenous urban dwellers and a founder of the Indigenous Bar Association of Canada. She has received the Order of Canada as well as many other honors for her activism on behalf of indigenous people. She was a founder and currently serves on the National Indigenous Council of Elders.
Marion R. Buller, is a First Nations jurist (retired), practising lawyer with Miller Titerle+Co. in British Columbia and current chancellor of the University of Victoria. Buller served as the Chief Commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls from 2016 to 2019.
