Valerie Fernandes is the Founder of Ontario Bar Exam Courses (obecourses.com) which helps domestic and international students and licensing candidates effectively prepare for Ontario’s Barrister and Solicitor examinations. Formerly at Shopify, Valerie has been passionately teaching bar strategy for several years and has worked with her team to help many students pass the exam.

Through practice and competitive mooting, she has appeared before the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Ontario Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Valerie holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School with a specialization in Litigation & Dispute Resolution along with a BA from the University of Toronto.

Deborah Wolfe, P.Eng., is the Executive Director, National Committee on Accreditation and Law Schools Programs with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. The NCA assesses the qualifications of individuals with legal education and professional experience obtained outside of Canada, or in a Canadian civil law program, who wish to be admitted to a common law bar in Canada. Ms. Wolfe also leads the process to approve Canadian common law, law school programs.

Ms. Wolfe is the Past Chair of the Association of Accrediting Agencies of Canada, a former President of the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation, a charity that encourages girls to become engineers, and a former Chair of the Canadian Network of Agencies for Regulation. Ms. Wolfe was previously with Engineers Canada where she was responsible for the accreditation of undergraduate engineering programs in Canada, and Engineers Canada’s research and foreign credential evaluation programs.

Ms. Wolfe is a civil engineer licensed in the province of Ontario and is a former Military Engineer having served with the Canadian Armed Forces.

For over 20 years, Gina Alexandris has been inspiring and supporting individuals and organizations to strategically define their hopes and achieve their goals. As the Senior Program Director of Ryerson’s Law Practice Program (LPP), Gina is responsible for the development, implementation and general management of this innovative transition year training program for lawyer licensing Candidates in Ontario. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring academic excellence and the quality of service and program delivery for participants, and outreach to hundreds of contributing members of the legal profession. Gina has also been actively involved with the development and recent launch of Ryerson’s new innovative law school.

With a passion for adult education, leadership and diversity, she completed her Masters of Education in 2012 and received her Coaching Certification in 2017. Gina developed and directed the award-winning Internationally Trained Lawyers Program at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law and spent more than 12 years with Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, first as Director of Career Services, followed by nine years as the Assistant Dean of Student Services. Between 2013 and 2014, Gina was the Director, Strategic Planning and Knowledge Management for the Legal Services Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario.

Following her graduation from Osgoode Hall Law School, Gina began her legal career practicing family law and civil litigation in Toronto, Canada. Gina is a Board Member of COSTI Immigrant Services, Young Women in Law (YWL) and the Hellenic Canadian Lawyers Association (HCLA). She is also a proud Greek-Canadian soccer mom living with her family in Toronto.

Dr. Kara Mitchelmore, holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Athabasca University, is a fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) and the Certified Management Accountants (CMA) and is a Certified Marketing and Research Professional (CMRP). Dr. Mitchelmore is the CEO of CPLED, a non-profit organization that provides the training needed before being called to the Bars of Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan.

She spent eight years with Certified Management Accountants (CMA) Alberta, including four years as president and CEO. Most recently, Kara was the CEO of the Marketing Research & Intelligence Association (MRIA). She also has a decade of experience as an instructor, including time spent at CMA Alberta, Mount Royal University and Bow Valley College.

Kara is outstanding at moving projects forward, and as a leader and educator, she describes herself as “output-based,” and inspires and equips her team to excel in that regard as well.

visit CPLED @ https://cpled.ca/

Noor's legal journey began with an interest in educating people as to their rights while she was studying English literature in my home country, Pakistan. Being raised in a very lively and densely populated city like Lahore gave her the insight to analyze the societal atrocities and indifferences that she used to study in my literature classes. At this point, she decided to go to law school in hopes to attempt to bridge the gap between societal power imbalance.

She went to the University of London (UK) to pursue her passion to help restore social justice in her home country. In 2017, Noor's family decided to move to Canada and she got tagged along. Soon after landing in Canada, she had 8 NCAs exams, articling, and bar exams ahead of her. Noor was able to complete her NCAs in two consecutive sessions. Alongside this, she secured a job in a law firm as an administrative coordinator.

Noor has recently completed her bar exams and got called to the Ontario Bar on September 30th 2020. She is practicing real estate law in Cambridge, ON now.

Litsa Dantzer is the founder of Law Job Exchange, Canada’s first and only online legal career community of over 12,000 lawyers, law students and legal professionals across Canada. Through her latest endeavour, legalcareercoach.ca, she coaches lawyers and law students at every stage of their career to connect (or reconnect!) with their passion for the law under their own terms. She has made it her mission to help legal professionals reach their full potential and accompany them on their career journey, every step of the way.

Having graduated from the Civil Law Faculty at the University of Ottawa in 2014, Litsa fiercely promotes careers outside of the traditional legal realm as a real option for law graduates. Outside of her work with Law Job Exchange and legalcareercoach.ca, Litsa works in Recruitment and HR at Shopify and enjoys chasing after her two young boys and two rambunctious wiener dogs.

Charles is the Managing Partner & CEO at Osuji & Smith Lawyers. He is one of the leading young lawyers in Canada. He has been voted and chosen as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada, the Entrepreneur of the Year by Diversity Magazine, the 2020 Immigrant of Distinction (Achievement Under 35) by Immigration Services Calgary, and repeatedly voted as one of the top 3 Employment and Business lawyers in Calgary by ThreeBestRated, among other awards and recognitions including Canada's Top 40 Under 40 and Canadian Bar Association’s Rising Star Award.

Abhay Gautam is a Biotechnologist, a business graduate and a lawyer. After completing his Masters in Biotechnology in 2007, he proceeded to graduate from Monash University, Australia in 2010 with a Master of International Business and Master of Business (Project Management). In 2017, he earned his LLB degree from Guru Nanak Dev University, India.

Abhay then moved to Canada in 2017 to pursue his goal of practicing law in Canada. He has passed the Ontario Bar Examinations (Barrister and Solicitor) and is currently Articling with Khangura & Bajaj LLP in Toronto, ON.

Angela Sordi the Director of Professional Recruiting at Borden Ladner Gervais in Toronto. She is also a Certified Executive Coach, a Member of the International Coaching Federation and a Member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. In her current role, she is responsible for all aspects of the summer student and articling program including student recruitment and student professional development. Angela is also responsible for coaching junior associates at the firm.

Deborah Wolfe, P.Eng., is the Executive Director, National Committee on Accreditation and Law Schools Programs with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. The NCA assesses the qualifications of individuals with legal education and professional experience obtained outside of Canada, or in a Canadian civil law program, who wish to be admitted to a common law bar in Canada.

Ms. Wolfe also leads the process to approve Canadian common law, law school programs. Ms. Wolfe is the Past Chair of the Association of Accrediting Agencies of Canada, a former President of the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation, a charity that encourages girls to become engineers, and a former Chair of the Canadian Network of Agencies for Regulation. Ms. Wolfe was previously with Engineers Canada where she was responsible for the accreditation of undergraduate engineering programs in Canada, and Engineers Canada’s research and foreign credential evaluation programs.

Ms. Wolfe is a civil engineer licensed in the province of Ontario and is a former Military Engineer having served with the Canadian Armed Forces.