Melanie Anderson
Lawyer
- Location:
Toronto
- Phone:
416-979-4386
- Fax:
416-591-7333
- Email:
Biography
Melanie Anderson (she/her) works hard to disrupt established systems that disadvantage workers and members of marginalized communities. Regardless of the forum or issue, Melanie approaches each file with compassion, develops effective strategies, and sets out clear options that allow her clients to make informed decisions to advance their interests.
Her practice involves a mix of civil litigation, constitutional law, and class actions.
Employees rely on Melanie for strategic advice on a range of employment issues, including termination, discrimination, and harassment. She is knowledgeable about the complex jurisdictional or political issues that Indigenous workers encounter, and has represented Indigenous clients facing a variety of workplace issues. Through her work on class actions, Melanie helps get justice for thousands of workers at a time, fighting for the rights of gig workers or helping employees get the pay they have earned. Melanie is also involved in asserting the rights of workers, and others, through complex constitutional litigation.
Melanie’s civil litigation practice includes helping people facing unwarranted ‘SLAPP’ suits (lawsuits used to silence them), as well as those who have been damaged by defamatory remarks. She is on LawPRO’s Preferred Counsel List, defending lawyers against allegations of negligence.
As a queer person, Melanie takes every opportunity to work with members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. She has assisted queer clients in fighting back against discrimination in large, slow-moving institutions through achieving significant individual remedies and meaningful systemic change. Melanie helps coordinate Goldblatt Partners’ participation in the 519’s Employment Law Clinic. She is also on the Executive of the Ontario Bar Association’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community Section.
Melanie is a member of the Indigenous Bar Association, the Ontario Bar Association, and the Canadian Bar Association.
Before coming to Goldblatt Partners, Melanie’s legal education took her from coast to coast. She obtained her law degree at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law in Halifax. She then returned to Vancouver, where she grew up, to complete a clerkship at the British Columbia Court of Appeal.
Outside of the office, Melanie enjoys exploring the world by bike or on foot, sampling different craft beers as a certified beer judge, or settling into a sunny spot with a mug of coffee and a new novel.