Joy-Ann works in immigration law, human rights and employment law.

She has been a lawyer since 1984. She earned a Master of Laws degree (Labour and Employment Law) in 2003 from Osgoode Hall Law School. That same year, she developed the University of Saskatchewan’s first immigration law program. She continues both as an advocate in private practice in Toronto and as an adjunct professor in various parts of Canada. In 2015, she will be teaching a module on the subject of Immigration Appeals, Humanitarian and Compassionate Applications and Detention Reviews, over the internet to students at the University of British Columbia School of Continuing Studies. The students in the program are people who would like to qualify as consultants — or who are already consultants — from across Canada.

She has just co-chaired a program for the Ontario Bar on Child and Youth Issues in Immigration Law.

She volunteers. She was the Ontario Bar Association’s representative on the Courts Accessibility Committee for People with Disabilities between September, 2008 and September, 2014. In the coming year, she will lead the Designated Representatives (lawyers and social workers who represent vulnerable people and children in immigration proceedings) in consultations with the Immigration and Refugee Board.

As immigration counsel, she appears before the Immigraton and Refugee Board and the Federal Court. She has traveled abroad to China, South Africa and the U.S., meeting families and skilled workers who apply for landed immigrant status in Canada. She has also advised two industry associations (one national and the other in Manitoba) about immigration matters.

On the employment side of her law practice, she advocates at all stages of the work relationship and on human rights issues. She provides training to organizations and she has taught the subject of human rights to paralegals in a four-year B.A.A. at Humber College.