Client Education

You’d like to learn about important legal issues that affect you and your members, wouldn’t you?

Our clients work hard to meet their obligations in complicated and constantly changing legal, regulatory and economic environments. We’re here to help. That’s where our client education program, Leading Questions, comes in.

Leading Questions events address the issues that confront you and your organization. They are held regularly, and include seminars, workshops, podcasts, guest speakers, and more. We answer the questions you’ve been wondering about, as well as those you didn’t even know you had.

Many of you may recall our successful Laws & Bagels client seminars held some years ago. Those seminars addressed many legal issues of importance to our clients. Leading Questions carries on that tradition, but offers other ways to engage and learn in addition to traditional client seminars.

Since the start of the pandemic, Goldblatt Partners has been offering client seminars via Zoom, which has allowed many more of our clients to participate, including those outside the Greater Toronto area.

If you are a Goldblatt Partners client, and would like to receive registration information for Leading Questions events, please email: leadingquestions@goldblattpartners.com and ask to be added to our mailing list. Make sure to indicate which organization you work for.

If you’re already on our email list, all you need to do is keep an eye out for the invitations to the seminars, typically sent about 4 weeks in advance of each seminar.

Some of our recent webinars have included:

• What Unions Need to Know about AI, Automation and New Technologies – We looked at how emerging technologies are being integrated into the workplace and what unions need to do to prepare.
• OMG!! We’re Going to the OLRB! – In this webinar, we focused on what our clients need to know when they are involved in a case before the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
• 2023: The Year in Review – The New Year started off with a celebration of our lawyers’ best wins and notable cases from 2023, featuring a dozen of our lawyers presenting on a variety of labour and other cases.
• Gender Identity and Expression in the Workplace – We discussed key terms related to gender identity and expression, identified laws and decisions establishing rights related to gender identity and expression, and shared best practices towards gender identity and expression in today’s workplaces.
• Interest Arbitration and Bill 124 Reopeners – We reviewed key principles in interest arbitration, explored recent trends, discussed how to respond to common employer arguments and how to prepare for bargaining. We also reviewed trends in Bill 124 reopener clauses and discussed the litigation that is currently winding its way through the courts.
• 2023 COVID Caselaw Update – We discussed the latest decisions on religious/creed accommodation in vaccination cases, the remedies that may be available to employees who were removed from the workplace as a result of mandatory vaccination policies, and other COVID-related cases that had been decided since our last COVID update.

The Fall 2024 season will start off on September 20th at 10 a.m., with a webinar on Privacy in the Workplace. Clients can join our mailing list to find out more.

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Client-specific seminars and training

We regularly speak at in-house educational events organized by our clients for their own staff and representatives. The legal issues we’ve been asked to address in recent months include: social media in the workplace; how to navigate the grievance and arbitration process; human rights issues in collective bargaining; family status discrimination; pay equity; and an update on recent arbitration cases.

We are always available to help you with your in-house seminars. If you would like us to speak at an event you have organized, or to develop a seminar, webinar, or workshop for your organization, please contact Kelly Doctor.