Fay Faraday is a social justice lawyer, strategic adviser, policy consultant and academic whose work focuses on constitutional law/Charter of Rights and Freedoms, human rights, labour and employment law, pay equity, employment equity, transnational migrant workers’ rights, and public interest litigation. She is the founder of Faraday Law an independent social justice law and strategic consulting practice in Toronto.
Fay represents unions, workers, civil society organizations, coalitions and social movements in litigation, and provides strategic advice, policy analysis and complex opinion work. She has represented clients on many leading constitutional and human rights cases at the Supreme Court of Canada and Ontario Court of Appeal. She has particular experience and expertise in large-scale innovative litigation that challenges intersecting dynamics of discrimination and the systemic roots of social and economic marginalization. Her work addresses a wide range of human rights issues including gender and work, racial discrimination, pay equity, employment equity, poverty, income security, rights of transnational migrant workers, LGBTQ rights, rights of Indigenous communities, economic and social rights, and international human rights norms.
Fay has more than two decades’ experience as a policy consultant conducting commissioned research and policy analysis, and researching and writing law reform reports for governments, task forces, and public, private and community-based organizations on issues including constitutional and human rights, access to justice, migrant workers’ rights, effective enforcement of labour rights, employment standards and pay equity.
She works collaboratively with community organizations and multi-stakeholder coalitions to develop strategic visions and practical action plans to advance human rights and social justice outcomes. She also provides training on human rights compliance, conducts workplace investigations and provides mediation/conciliation services on human rights issues.
Fay is also an Assistant Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where she teaches in the areas of social and economic justice, labour, employment, transnational labour migration, human rights, ethical lawyering, appellate advocacy, and social justice and political activism. As an Innovation Fellow with the Metcalf Foundation, Fay has published three landmark reports on migrant worker rights in Canada. She has published extensively on constitutional law, labour and human rights.
Fay also serves as Discrimination and Harassment Counsel for the Law Society of Ontario.