Emily Chan

Lawyer, Litigation and Community Development, Hons. B.A., LL.B.

Emily has been with JFCY since 2003. In addition to her litigation work, Emily dedicates time towards Community Development. In the community development role, Emily participates in a variety of community initiatives, facilitates legal education presentations in schools and other settings for youth and front-line staff who work with youth; organizes and presents at numerous conferences; and serving as a board member and the Treasurer for the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children.

In litigation, she represented JFCY before the Supreme Court of Canada on an intervention about the definition of “violent offence” under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, represented JFCY and the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children in an intervention about the rights of a child found in armed combat overseas (Omar Khadr), represented JFCY in an intervention about the legal obligation to the consider the Best Interests of the Child when a child seeks to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds; and represented JFCY before the Federal Court as an applicant in a constitutional challenge to the Federal Government’s cuts to refugee health care.

Emily is currently on the board of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, and the Canadian Association for the Practical Study of Law and Education; and previously on Executive of the Education Law section and the Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights Law section of the Ontario Bar Association. Emily graduated from Queen’s Law School, articled at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice as the dedicated Divisional Court law clerk, and was called to the Bar in Ontario in 2002.