Lawyers Benjamin Piper

Benjamin Piper

Partner

• Location:

  Ottawa

• Phone:

  613-482-2464

• Fax:

  613-235-3041

• Email:

  bpiper@goldblattpartners.com

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Biography

Ben Piper is a lawyer because he believes in fighting for social and economic justice. He loves working for unions because of the essential work they do advancing the rights of working people. For workers outside of a union or other victims of unjust or discriminatory acts, Ben believes in using the law to help balance the scales of power. Ben represents clients in both French and English.

Ben’s practice is particularly focussed on work for teachers, firefighters, federal public servants and other public sector workers in Ontario and across Canada. He works on a broad range of issues around collective agreement interpretation and arbitration, human rights and accommodation issues, workplace injuries and benefits and professional discipline. Ben also litigates in court on behalf of unions, and helps non-union employees navigate terminations and other difficult situations with their employers.

Ben has also been involved in a number of significant constitutional challenges, appeals, judicial review applications and public interest cases. He represented teachers on the successful constitutional challenge to Bill 124, the Ontario government’s pay restraint legislation, a decision that was upheld at the Ontario Court of Appeal and set a new barrier against governments overriding free collective bargaining. He has worked on cases involving voter suppression through robocalls, dress codes in hospitals, and disclosure of documents in litigation against the government brought by former residents of Indian Residential Schools.

A born and bred debater, Ben is a passionate litigator. He loves diving into the fray to defend the rights of his client, and finding just the right way to frame an argument that will persuade a judge, arbitrator or board. On this front, Ben knows what makes judges and other decision-makers tick, after years of working with judges as a clerk the Supreme Court of Canada and the Ontario Court of Appeal, and then working alongside countless judges from around Canada to design their education at the National Judicial Institute.

Still, being a pragmatist at heart, Ben’s main goal is always to guide his clients through legal processes that can be stressful and overly complicated, and find the solution that will work best for them going forward.

Ben’s biggest challenge comes on the evenings and weekends, when he tries to keep up with his two kids. In the (very little) free time left, Ben likes to run, ski and play guitar.