Joanna Radbord, LSM
Partner
Joanna Radbord is a partner at McCarthy Hansen & Company LLP. Joanna has practiced over a quarter-century, seeking to advance access to family justice through litigation, intervention, law reform, and education.
Joanna was awarded the Law Society Medal for exceptional career achievements and contributions to her community in the areas of LGBTQ2+ rights, family law, constitutional and human rights. She received the Lexpert Zenith Award: Celebrating Women in Law and the Canadian Bar Association Sexual and Gender Diversity Alliance Section Hero Award.
Joanna has done ground-breaking work on substantive equality and access to justice, including litigation to achieve spousal status for same-sex couples (M v H), equal marriage (Halpern), trans parenting (Forrester), birth registration (Rutherford), three parent recognition (AA v BB) and defining parentage (Grand). In relation to Indigenous families, Joanna’s work has addressed jurisdiction over Haudenosaunee family law disputes (Beaver v Hill), and the best interests of Indigenous children in parenting cases (EY v BA). She was a member of the counsel team who won recognition of the tort of intimate partner violence before the Supreme Court of Canada (Ahluwalia).
Joanna has frequently acted as intervener counsel, representing The Advocates’ Society, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, Family Alliance Ontario and the Sherbourne Health Centre. She has significant experience in family law reform, including the reconceptualization of parentage, and the availability of child support to dependent adult children with disabilities. She has completed expert reports to governments on child support and family violence and on modernizing family law processes. She serves as a member of the Expert Advisory Committee on Child Support, the Legal Aid Ontario Family Advisory Committee, and the family law executives of the Ontario Bar Association and Canadian Bar Association.
Joanna is a frequent writer and speaker on family law and equality rights issues, and a former Adjunct Professor and McMurtry Fellow at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is editor of the award-winning book LGBTQ2+ Law: Practice Issues and Analysis and her recent writing on intimate partner violence is featured in the Canadian Journal of Family Law and Understanding Family Violence in Family Court Proceedings.
For 2026-2027, Joanna will be the OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellow in Legal Ethics and Professionalism Studies. Her project, titled “Reimagining Family Law Post-Ahluwalia,” will examine how the profession can take a trauma-informed approach to the development of family law in relation to intimate partner violence, and consider the corresponding implications for professional responsibility, access to justice, dignity and substantive equality.
