George Ellinidis is Vice-President and General Counsel, Canada & International, for Smucker Foods of Canada Corp. and has been with the company since 2009. His work there covers several areas of the law including advertising and marketing law, litigation, cross-border issues, and competition and trademark law.

Mr. Ellinidis was called to the Ontario Bar in 1997 and received his B.A. from the University of Toronto (University College), his LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School, and his LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. He began his career as an associate at Blake, Cassels & Graydon in Toronto where he specialized in corporate/commercial law before moving on to become General Counsel for Toyota/Lexus Financial Services.

Mr. Ellinidis also enjoys lecturing and has been teaching various Business Law related courses at Toronto Metropolitan University since 2004. In the fall of 2021, he taught Business Law at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law.  Mr. Ellinidis is very excited to be returning to his alma mater, Osgoode Hall Law School, to teach Business Associations and Commercial Law.

SJD (University of Toronto), LLM (Hebrew University), LLB (Haifa University)

Dr. Miriam Zucker is a visiting fellow at the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies and the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Dr. Zucker’s research concerns the areas of Multiculturalism and Feminism, Law and Religion, and Human Rights Law. She is the recipient of the Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights (2021).

Dr. Zucker holds a doctorate in law from the University of Toronto, where she also mentored new LLM students in their research as an SJD Advisor. She received her LLB degree (magna cum laude) from Haifa University and her LLM degree in Public and International Law (magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also taught Administrative Law. At the Hebrew University, she was awarded a prize for excellence, as well as a prize in the field of Philosophy of Law for her work on the judicial review of cases that deal with sex segregation practices within Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel.

Dr. Zucker’s doctoral work focuses on the problem of minority women’s intra-group vulnerability, often described as the treatment of “minorities within minorities.” Her work reveals significant gaps in the theoretical literature on this problem by examining the ways in which Western democracies – including Israel, the US, Canada, and the UK – have responded to polygamy and forced marriage practices among cultural minority communities. To overcome these gaps, she develops a new approach, based on her critical analysis, for addressing intra-group vulnerabilities by suggesting alternatives to criminalization and by offering innovative strategies that promote equal access for minority women to welfare assistance, protections against domestic violence, and justice in family law. Dr. Zucker has presented different portions of her work at academic conferences in Canada, the United States, and Israel. Her article on the issue of intra-group vulnerability was recently published in the Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, and her article entitled “Between Intra-Group Vulnerability and Inter-Group Vulnerability: Bridging the Gaps in the Theoretical Scholarship on Internal Minorities” is forthcoming in Inter Gentes: The McGill Journal of International Law & Legal Pluralism (2022).

Before she began her doctoral studies, Dr. Zucker practiced law at the Israeli State Attorney’s Office, where she prepared civil suits and supervised the handling of cases that had been transferred by the State Attorney to external lawyers. After her call to the Israeli Bar (and before joining the State Attorney’s Office), she served as a law clerk to the Honourable Judge Noam at the Jerusalem District Court, where she handled criminal and administrative cases in first instance, as well as civil appeals.

LLB (Externado de Colombia), MA (La Plata)

Ximena Sierra-Camargo holds a doctorate in law from Rosario University (Colombia) where she held a position as a lecturer in various disciplines of international law comprising general public international law, human rights, international economic law, global law and development. She also has performed as a lecturer at postgraduate level in Transnational Law, Human Rights, Development and Peace Studies at Los Andes University and Externado de Colombia University.

Her thesis on the large-scale gold mining legal regime in Colombia from a postcolonial and from critical developmental perspective was awarded with the highest distinction of “Laurate thesis”. She was a Visiting Training Fellow at the Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL), Kent Law School, The University of Kent (2015 – 2016) and a Visiting Fellow at the Transnational Law Institute (TLI), The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London (2016). Dr. Sierra also holds an MA in Sociology of Law from La Plata National University (Argentina) and a LLB from Externado de Colombia University.

Her research focuses on the colonial and postcolonial nature of mining policy in Colombia. She analyses how transnational agents (from the gold mining sector operating in Colombia) regulate through the rule of law domestic realities, and in doing so end up establishing a particular global economic order at the national level. Her research discloses the colonial character of the rule of law and shows the global historicity of current development practices and discourses. It examines also how mining policies have incessantly shaped the nature and operation of the rule of law in Colombia, and insight that can illuminate similar practices in other regions of the Global South.

Dr. Sierra has also worked in legal aid and legal practice in the areas of public law, international law and human rights, gaining direct experience on socio-legal methods and fieldwork as researcher, and as legal practitioner, on the monitoring of human rights and the performance of official development policies, working as an attorney at recognized NGOs like the Colombian Commission of Jurists and at public entities like the office of the Ombudsman in Colombia, and as a consultant at International Organizations.

Her research and teaching interests include international and transnational law, corporations and human rights, global law and development, postcolonial studies, legal aesthetics.

MES, LLB (Osgoode), Law Society of Ontario

Cathy Guirguis is a partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP. Her practice is focussed on advancing Aboriginal and treaty rights through litigation and negotiation. She has represented clients in applications and actions in Ontario and Manitoba, as well as in federal court and at the Supreme Court of Canada. She has also represented Indigenous clients in proceedings and tribunals regarding election processes, labour and employment, and environmental assessment. Ms. Guirguis provides negotiation advice regarding Aboriginal and treaty rights, land claims, and consultation, and she also advises clients on day-to-day employment matters and governance administration. She received her LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, and she also has a Masters of Environmental Studies.

While at law school, Ms. Guirguis was a senior editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal and she volunteered at Osgoode’s Community Legal Aid Services Program, and Downsview Legal Aid Clinic. She has also worked with the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), working on projects dealing with the duty to consult and accommodate, and indigenous environmental laws. Prior to law, Ms. Guirguis worked in international development and she has a background in journalism.

Ms. Guirguis is a member of the Ontario bar. She is listed as a “consistently recommended” lawyer in the Lexpert Directory.

LLB (Windsor), LLM (LSE), Law Society of Ontario

Ed Skwarek is Vice President, Legal & Regulatory Affairs with Advocis. He oversees the development of comprehensive policy positions in the interest of advisors and consumers, and directs the implementation of Advocis’s responses to regulatory and legislative proposals. He was formerly Senior Legal Counsel with the B.C. Securities Commission.

Mr. Skwarek is a member of the Financial Services Tribunal, an independent, decision-making body that hears appeals from decision and reviews proposed decisions of the Chief Executive Officer, Financial Services Regulatory Authority. He also acts in a Act in a consultative capacity to the Board of Directors, Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

Mr. Skwarek is an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he teaches the Securities Regulation course.