Short Bio

Samantha Peters (they/them, she/her) is a human rights lawyer with a background in labour and employment law, including conducting workplace investigations and advising management on human rights related matters. She is a LLM candidate at Queen's University Faculty of Law specializing in Political and Legal Thought, a Human Rights Expert Panel Member of the Court Challenges Program of Canada, and the Director of Legal Initiatives and Public Interest at Black Femme Legal which is a Black femme led organization offering a workplace toolkit in support of Black queer and trans women, femmes and gender expansive folks across the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Ontario specifically as it relates to discrimination and/or harassment based on race and its intersection with prohibited code grounds such as disability, sexual orientation, and record of offences.

Samantha is a frequent commentator and writer on topics such as workers’ rights, sexual and gender-based violence, social policy and critical race theory in Canada. Her commentary and writing on these issues have been featured in the Toronto Star, Global News, Flare, and other newspaper and broadcast outlets, including CBC Sunday. In 2020, her essay titled “Making Social Context Education Mandatory: Why Cultural Competency Should Matter in the Courtroom” won the Canadian Bar Association’s Women Lawyers’ Forum’s inaugural “Writing Her In” competition.

Full Bio

Samantha Peters (they/them, she/her) is a non-binary Black queer femme lawyer, educator and advocate, whose work focuses on labour, employment and human rights law. Samantha completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto in Equity Studies, Political Science and French and her graduate studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education. Thereafter, she moved to Paris, France where she worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale in the Académie de Versailles. Upon their return to Toronto, they began their career working at the intersection of law and education at the Ontario Bar Association. After two years at the Ontario Bar Association, Samantha then decided to pursue legal studies in the Nation’s Capital. They are an alumna of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law with specializations in Public Law and Dispute Resolution and Professionalism, and graduated law school with various scholarships and awards including the Jean-Alexander de Bousquet Scholarship for the Advancement of Human Rights and the Black Student Law Scholarship which is awarded to a Black student who has made a contribution to issues of importance to Black Canadians aimed at the eradication of discrimination and the causes of discrimination in Canadian society.

Samantha completed her articles of clerkship in a bilingual capacity (French and English) at a national union in Ottawa, Ontario where they represented workers across Canada in industries such as social services, emergency services and education. Following the completion of their articles, Samantha took a hiatus from the practice of law to engage in work at the intersection of law, education and policy, ranging from law reform initiatives to legal education to legislative research. Since 2020, she has been licensed to practice law in two Canadian jurisdictions — Ontario and Alberta.

Samantha is deeply committed to community and legal work related to racial justice, sexual and gender-based violence prevention, access to justice and workers’ rights. She has worked (paid and unpaid) at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, the Law Commission of Ontario, Law Help Ontario through Pro Bono Students Canada, the Employment Insurance Litigation Clinic at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, South Ottawa Community Legal Services, the African Canadian Legal Clinic, Sanctuary for Families in New York City, the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, and served as the first-ever Black Legal Mentor-in-Residence/Mentor Juridique pour la Communauté Noire at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law for the 2020 - 2021 academic year.

Presently, she is a LLM candidate at Queen's University Faculty of Law specializing in Political and Legal Thought, a Human Rights Expert Panel Member of the Court Challenges Program of Canada, and the Director of Legal Initiatives and Public Interest at Black Femme Legal which is a Black femme led organization offering a workplace toolkit in support of Black queer and trans women, femmes and gender expansive folks across the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Ontario specifically as it relates to discrimination and/or harassment based on race and its intersection with prohibited code grounds such as disability, sexual orientation, and record of offences.

Samantha’s writing and commentary have appeared in Huffington Post Canada, CBA/ABC’s National Magazine, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Global News, the Toronto Star, Xtra and others. She is also the Canadian Bar Association’s Women Lawyers’ Forum’s inaugural “Writing Her In” essay contest winner for their paper titled, “Making Social Context Education Mandatory: Why Cultural Competency Should Matter in the Courtroom”.

In 2020, Samantha was selected as a Top 100 Black Women in Canada to Watch by the Canadian International Black Women Event (CIBWE).