Expert and trustworthy leadership support for progressive leaders

Joanna (Jo) is a lawyer and strategist with an extraordinary capacity to analyze complex problems and provide her clients with wise, sustainable and innovative solutions that attend to relationships, values and mandates. 

Her legal expertise is in the areas of labour and employment, administrative justice and human rights law.  She has advocated for her clients in forums ranging from labour arbitration boards to the Supreme Court of Canada.  From 2007 to 2017 she was partner at a boutique labour and employment law firm in Vancouver during which time she represented a broad range of clients seeking to realize their individual and collective rights to equality, safety and fairness.  

 In 2018 she founded Rise Leadership to fully concentrate her expertise on proactive and non-litigious solutions to conflict and change.  Through Rise, Joanna provides progressive leaders with strategic legal advice, policy development and stakeholder engagement that supports their work for a more equitable and healthy society. 

Joanna is also a skilled mediator, facilitator and convenor of difficult conversations and community engagements as well as a certified leadership coach.   

She is an experienced independent investigator, known for her incisiveness, fairness and skillful communication.  Joanna applies a systems theory approach to her analysis of workplace challenges, attending always to the myriad factors which contribute to counterproductive behaviours and dynamics within organizations and communities.  Her reports are decisive and solution-oriented.  

Joanna has a BA with an emphasis in organizational psychology and cultural studies, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Victoria (2005) and a Masters of Law in administrative and constitutional law from Osgoode Law School (2016) where she also completed the certificate program in Tribunal and Board Adjudication. She also holds certificates in mediation (Harvard University and US Department of Justice), leadership coaching (New Ventures West, San Francisco) and restorative justice (Simon Fraser University).  

She is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia.Get to know our team of attorneys.