About Us

The Human Rights Legal Support Centre is an independent agency, funded by the Government of Ontario, to provide legal services to individuals who believe that they have experienced discrimination. The Centre will provide legal assistance to individuals in taking an application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to resolve a human rights dispute.

The Chair of the Board of Directors of the Legal Centre is Raj Anand.

Raj Anand is a partner with WeirFoulds LLP where he practises in the areas of human rights, constitutional and administrative law, labour relations, civil litigation, professional negligence and discipline. He is a former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and has acted for complainants and respondents before the Ontario and Canadian Human Rights Commissions. He has acted as a Board of Inquiry under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Police Services Act, as Co-Chair of the University of Toronto Tribunal and as counsel to a number of administrative tribunals. Mr. Anand acts for a variety of non governmental organizations in public interest litigation.

Mr. Anand served in 1986-1987 as a Task Force to the Ontario Government on the Law Concerning Trespass to Publicly-used Property as it Affects Youth and Minorities. For seven years Mr. Anand was the Advocates’ Society representative on the Equity Advisory Group of the Law Society. He also served on the Equality Rights Panel of the Federal Court Challenges Programme, and the Board of Trustees of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Boards of Directors of two community clinics, the Advocates' Society and Pro Bono Law Ontario. He is presently a member of the Board of Directors of Legal Aid Ontario and President of the University of Toronto Law Alumni Council.

In 1997, Mr. Anand was the first recipient of the Advocates’ Society Award of Justice. In 2003, he received the Law Society Medal, the highest honour awarded by the governing body of the legal profession in Ontario, and in 2007 he was elected by the profession to a four year term as a bencher of the Law Society. In June 2007, he was awarded Professional Man of the Year by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. In April 2008, he was appointed by the Province of Ontario to Chair its Human Rights Legal Support Centre.

The Executive Director of the Legal Centre is Kathy Laird.

Kathy Laird has many years of experience in Ontario’s human rights system. From 1994 to 2001, Ms Laird served as a Vice Chair at the previous Human Rights Board of Inquiry and at the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal. From 1990 to 1994, Kathy was Counsel to the Chair of theHuman Rights Board of Inquiry; from May 2007 to May 2008, Kathy served as Counsel to the Chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (Acting).

In addition to her years in the tribunal sector, Ms Laird has been employed as a senior policy advisor at the Human Rights Commission and she practiced administrative law, including human rights law, for many years in Ontario’s legal clinic system.

Ms Laird is the 2004 recipient of the medal given by the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators for outstanding contribution to the administrative justice sector in Ontario.

The Staff of the Legal Centre includes:

  • Three legal services teams made up of Counsel and Legal Service Representatives
  • Each team will be linked to a region of the province and will deliver services in that region or support the legal services provided in that region by local service partners (including lawyers, legal clinics and other community-based partners)