Toronto lawyer Kathryn Marshall opens plaintiff-side human rights and employment firm

Based in Toronto, Marshall Law’s team includes lawyer Samara Rotstein, paralegal Marisa Parson, and an articling student who will join the firm in several weeks.

The firm will focus on the types of human rights and employment matters Marshall is known for. As a partner at Levitt LLP, Marshall took on numerous high-profile cases, challenging the Law Society of Alberta and law firms on behalf of lawyers.

In 2022, she also sued Milburn & Associates, where she spent nearly two years as an associate, alleging it cultivated a toxic work environment and violated the Employment Standards Act, the Law Society Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Human Rights Code.

The Ontario government appointed Marshall to the Ontario Workforce Advisory Committee in 2021, where she helped draft changes to provincial employment law, including a ban on noncompetes and the right to disconnect.

The firm plans to launch a practice area “where we’re fighting for people who have been victimized by sexual extortion, illegal pictures online from former intimate partners, digital-based crimes,” Marshall says. The firm also anticipates taking on cases on behalf of individuals who have faced discrimination based on their neurodivergence, as well as women “who are going through IVF treatments and are menopausal, seeking hormone treatments, and are being discriminated against and pushed out of their jobs.”

The firm will “be on the cutting edge of a lot of rising legal areas,” Marshall says.