Aboriginal Law

Indigenous Alumni

The law school has been home to many remarkable Indigenous students over the years. Below is just a small sample of our Indigenous alumni and their accomplishments.

	Prof. Darlene Johnston '86 In 1995, Darlene Johnston resigned from her faculty postion at the University of Ottawa law school in order to coordinate the successful land claims research and litigation for her community, the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. She returned to a faculty position at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law before joining the faculty of the University of British Columbia law school. She was featured in the Trailblazers exhibit that highlighted remarkable women graduates of the law school.
	Mr. Justice Todd Ducharme '86 In 2004, after a distinguished career in criminal law, Todd Ducharme was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice. Mr. Justice Ducharme is the second Métis to be appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. He has since been appointed a Deputy Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories, the Supreme Court of Yukon and the Nunavut Court of Justice.
	Prof. John Borrows '91 Prof. Borrows is the Law Foundation Chair in Aboriginal Justice and Governance at the Faculty of Law of the University of Victoria. He is a winner of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 2003, and a Trudeau Foundation Fellows Prize in 2006. In 2002, he published the book Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. In 2003, he returned to the University of Toronto law school to deliver the inaugural Law and Diversity Lecture.
	Jean Teillet '94 A great-grandniece of Louis Riel, Jean Teillet established herself as professional dancer in Toronto prior to coming to the Faculty of Law in 1991. After graduating, Teillet helped create the Métis Nation of Ontario and won a landmark victory in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2003 for Métis rights. She was featured in the Trailblazers exhibit that highlighted remarkable women graduates of the law school.
	Margaret Froh '96 Margaret Froh is the president of the Métis Nation of Ontario, the first woman to be elected to the position. A lawyer and educator, Froh lives in Barrie, Ontario, situated within the traditional territory of the Georgian Bay Métis Community. Froh taught as adjunct faculty at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and is faculty at the Banff Centre's Lougheed Leadership Institute specializing in Indigenous governance. She’s a past president of the Indigenous Bar Association in Canada (IBA). Read a profile of her in U of T magazine.
	Prof. Douglas Sanderson '03 Prof. Sanderson is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. As a J.D. student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law he served as managing editor to the inaugural edition of the Indigenous Law Journal in 2002, and he then won a Fulbright scholarship to pursue his LL.M from Columbia University. From 2004-07 he served as a Senior Advisor to the Government of Ontario on legal and aboriginal issues, and in 2008 he organized the Summit on Aboriginal Economic Development with the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin. He joined the faculty of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2009.
	Dawnis Kennedy '03 In the year she graduated, Dawnis Kennedy received the the 2002/03 Presidents' Award for the Outstanding Native Student of the Year. Kennedy was given the award at an emotional ceremony at First Nations House, attended by close friends and family from her Anishinabe-quay band of Roseau River First Nation, Manitoba. In 2006, she was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation doctoral scholarship to pursue her SJD at U of T.