Board
Carl Baar
Carl Baar is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Brock University and is now an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at York University. He is a leading scholar in judicial administration and court system management.
Mark Benton, QC
Mark has been a lawyer since 1980 and has served as the Executive Director of the Legal Services Society (BC’s legal aid provider and its largest public legal education provider). Mark holds a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, a LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a LL.M. from the Dalhousie University Faculty of Law. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2008.
His legal experience includes small office practice, legal aid work, appellate advocacy in the BC Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada, and 4 years as an adjunct professor at the UBC Faculty of Law. He is past-Chair of the Association of Legal Aid Plans of Canada and continues to work on a number of government and non-government task forces addressing justice issues of importance to Canadians, including the National Action Committee on Access to Justice and the Re-inventing Criminal Justice Forum.
He is the co-author of a seminal 1997 article on the right to counsel in Canada.
Mark has been recognized in the B.C. Legislature as “a passionate advocate for access to justice for the economically disadvantaged in British Columbia, and he brings along with that passion great creativity in the search for solutions for how to make a difference in people’s lives.”
Melina Buckley
Melina Buckley is a lawyer and legal policy consultant working primarily in the areas of access to justice, constitutional law, human rights, and class actions. She is associated with the firm Camp Fiorante Matthews Mogerman in Vancouver. She has served as co-counsel in numerous public interest litigation cases at all levels of court and has directed several national research projects. Ms. Buckley has also worked internationally serving as a senior adviser on a comprehensive justice reform project in Jamaica, as an advisor on the constitutional reform process in Nepal, and is currently assisting on a public interest litigation case in Kenya. She has written several legal policy reports and is a published author on legal aid, access to justice, equality rights, constitutional law, dispute resolution, and international human rights law. The thread connecting Melina’s work is her deep commitment to making equal rights real for marginalized individuals and groups. In 2011, The Canadian Bar Association awarded Melina the Louis St-Laurent Award for distinguished service to the Association’s objectives and goals.
Brian A. Crane, QC
Brian A. Crane, QC, Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Ottawa, ON. Mr. Crane practises in the areas of constitutional, administrative and aboriginal law. He has appeared as counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court and the Ontario Courts. He has also worked extensively throughout Canada in the negotiation of native land claims and related litigation, and commercial arbitration and mediation. A frequent speaker at legal seminars and conferences, Mr. Crane (with co-authors Robert Mainville and the late Martin Mason) is author of First Nations Governance Law (2nd Edition) LexisNexis Canada, (2008). Mr. Crane has been an active member of the Canadian Bar Association and in 1996-98 was Chair of the Systems of Civil Justice Implementation Committee.
Trevor C.W. Farrow, PhD
Chair of the Board
Trevor C.W. Farrow, AB (Princeton), BA/MA (Oxford), LLB (Dalhousie), LLM (Harvard), PhD (Alberta), is the Dean and a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. He is also the former Academic Director of the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution. Dean Farrow’s teaching and research focus on the administration of civil justice, including legal process, legal and judicial ethics, advocacy, globalization and development. He was formerly a litigation lawyer at the Torys law firm in Toronto. Dean Farrow has received teaching awards at Harvard University and Osgoode Hall Law School.
The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge
Hons. B.A. (Political Science/Economics), University of Toronto, 1964. M.Sc. (Econ.), London School of Economics, 1965. LL.B. (Awarded Dean’s Key), University of Toronto, 1968.
The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge, Q.C. is currently a member of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice Board of Directors. Justice Goudge was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 1996, and retired from the bench this past April. Although best known to the public as the Commissioner who led the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology, Justice Goudge has been active on the boards and committees of several organizations including the Ontario Bar Association, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Pro Bono Law Ontario, Law Commission of Ontario, and was a bencher for the Law Society of the Upper Canada (1991-1996). Over the course of his long and distinguished career – first as a managing partner at Gowling, Strathy & Henderson and then as a Judge of the Court of Appeal for Ontario – Justice Goudge has been committed to advancing access to justice and excellence the profession. In 2013 he received a Guthrie award from the Law Foundation of Ontario in recognition of his exceptional work improving access to justice in Ontario. He was nominated for the award by Osgoode Hall Law Dean Lorne Sossin, who called Goudge’s work on building up the capacity and commitment of Canadian law schools to offer innovative programming in legal ethics as “simply unprecedented.” His contributions to the academic community include teaching courses in Labour Law and Native Rights, and in Professional Responsibility at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Since retiring, Justice Goudge has taken on a new role as counsel at Paliare Roland. He looks forward to continuing his work in access to justice through his work on the Board of the CFCJ and as a Fellow of the newly established Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution where he will continue to advance theory and practice in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, legal ethics, and professionalism in law schools in Ontario.
Gillian Marriott, QC
Madam Justice Gillian D. Marriott, former Executive Director of Pro Bono Law Alberta (PBLA), was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench effective June 17, 2016. Madam Justice Marriott was involved with PBLA for 10 years, serving as a Founding Board Member from 2006-2008 and as Executive Director from January 2009 to March 2016. PBLA is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to improve access to justice by increasing the scope and availability of pro bono legal services for low income Albertans. She also practiced family law as Counsel with Widdowson Kachur Ostwald Menzies LLP and was elected as a Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta (LSA). Madam Justice Marriott is also a Past President of the Alberta Branch of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA). She was an active member on several CBA and LSA committees over the years. In addition, Madam Justice Marriott has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Family Law at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law, has been a guest lecturer and instructor and has published several papers and articles.
Madam Justice Marriott was a founding member of the Children’s Legal and Educational Resource Centre and is a past member of the Board of the Immigrant Access Fund. In 2011 she received the “Women in Law Leadership Award—Leadership in the Community”. In 2015 she was awarded the Cecilia Johnstone Award for Outstanding Service for her exceptional involvement, dedication and service to the CBA – Alberta Branch. Madam Justice Marriott is also the 2015 recipient of the WK Moore Award from the University of Calgary for outstanding contribution to the Faculty of Law.
Pierre Noreau
Pierre Noreau is a full Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Université de Montréal, and a Researcher at the Université de Montréal’s Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP), where he has been posted since 1998 and served as Director from 2003 to 2006. Since 2018, Professor Noreau has served as President of the Institut québécois de réforme du droit et de la justice (IQRDJ). Professor Noreau is the Principal Investigator for the Accès au droit et à la justice (adaj.ca) project, which launched in 2016, and the Principal investigator of the Législation, Innovation et Société (LEXIS) project, which launched in 2024.
A political scientist and jurist by training, his particular interests lie in the sociology of law. His empirical research is concentrated on the functioning and evolution of the judicial system, non-contentious conflict resolution, access to justice and political mobilization of the law, ethno-cultural diversity from the perspectives of legal pluralism, as well as the study of institutionalization processes regulating social relationships. His recent work focuses on family mediation, community justice, how individuals in the penal system enact laws, the relationship between cultural communities and the rights and conditions associated with interdisciplinary research in law. In 2023, Professor Noreau published the books, Le Droit, Une forme du lien sociale (Presses de l’Université Laval, Québec)and Droit, Justice et Changement Social (Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Paris). Professor Pierre Noreau is a jurist with a Doctoral Degree from the Institut d’Études politiques in Paris.