Experience Matters
Leslie Reaume has been an effective decision-maker and mediator for many years. She works as a labour arbitrator and a mediator in labour, civil employment and human rights cases. Leslie opened her dispute resolution practice in 2019 after serving twelve years as Vice-chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Before her appointment to the Tribunal, Leslie practised employment, human rights, administrative, and Constitutional law. She also mediated discrimination and pay equity disputes involving federal public service employers, unions, and employees.
Leslie is an external adjudicator with the Canada Industrial Relations Board and a part-time member of the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board. She was appointed a part-time adjudicator with the Yukon Public Service Labour Relations Board and the Yukon Teachers Labour Relations Board for several years. Leslie is a member of the Ontario Labour-Management Arbitrators’ Association and the Law Society of Ontario and was recently inducted into the Canadian Academy of Distinguished Neutrals.
In June 2022, Leslie presided over the Inquest into the deaths of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam in Pembroke, Ontario. The jury returned 86 recommendations for changing how governments and communities address intimate partner violence.
Leslie’s extensive litigation experience informs her dispute resolution work. She has appeared before courts and tribunals at every level, including the Supreme Court of Canada, in a number of significant public interest cases. In addition to practising law, Leslie has taught courses in human rights law at the University of Western Ontario and alternative dispute resolution at Queen’s University.
A graduate of the University of Western Ontario Law School in 1995, Leslie was called to the bar in Ontario in 1997. In 2017, she completed a Master of Laws degree in alternative dispute resolution at Osgoode Hall Law School. Her major research paper explores the restorative potential of community-based public inquiries like the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. She has also written about developments in dispute resolution in the human rights and labour contexts.
Leslie grew up in Southwestern Ontario and has lived in Ottawa since 2001.