Helping people who ‘aren’t in a position to help themselves’

Toronto employment and labour litigator Stephen Moreau derives great satisfaction from helping people resolve complex workplace disputes and professional difficulties.

Moreau, partner with Cavalluzzo LLP, advocates for workers and professionals who are often struggling against powerful institutions.

“I enjoy helping people who have extremely complicated problems and aren’t in a position to help themselves,” he says.

Moreau represents unions, employees and administrative agencies before courts, arbitrators, tribunals and agencies. He works to develop practical, creative strategies in employment law, civil litigation and professional regulation.

His energy and hard work are evidenced by the fact that in about 12 years of practice, he is named on nearly 100 reported decisions.

‘Creative minds’

“I believe the best lawyers are the ones who work exceptionally hard but also have very creative minds,” says Moreau. “You have to be very creative and very strategic to get very far in this business.”

Moreau is leading a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for denying Employment Insurance (EI) sickness benefits to mothers on maternity or parental leave. The lawsuit has sparked a governmental promise of reform. The father of twins has also spearheaded a challenge to EI rules denying supplementary parental leave benefits to both parents in cases of multiple births.

A Gold Medal winner at the University of Manitoba law school and former clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada, Moreau is an experienced litigator who relishes legal tactics, the cut and thrust of court and getting the process right.

As a boy in Winnipeg, Moreau was detail-oriented, focused and creative, practising piano up to three hours a day. He liked logic, the search for truth and piecing together stories. His instincts for helping others were nurtured by his community, where people looked after each other in family, charity or church events.

Rule of law

As a bilingual teen, he decided on a legal career while attending French immersion high school, where the importance of the Canadian rule of law and Constitution was impressed upon its many students, like Moreau, who traced their roots to the country’s Francophone minority.

He took up undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba, but was bored by having too much free time. To fill in the hours, he wrote extra-long essays and did added research. “I would go overboard,” Moreau recalls. “I had to know the complete and total answer to any question.”

After two years in a general bachelor’s program, he switched to law, becoming an associate editor of the Manitoba Law Journal and a Legal Aid volunteer.

In his most memorable Legal Aid case, Moreau represented a man accused of assaulting a friend with a pen. As luck would have it, Moreau argued the case before a senior jurist, Justice Glenn Joyal — now Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba — and was opposed by one of the province’s most senior Crowns.

But Moreau won an acquittal. “It really felt good because I actually did believe my client,” he says. The experience confirmed his love of litigation.

‘Best present ever’

His parents gave him the trial transcript as a law school graduation gift. “For me, it was the best present ever.”

Moreau went on to article at the Winnipeg firm of Taylor McCaffrey LLP, where he was given carriage of a dozen small trials, including the defence in Small Claims Court of a man being sued by a major payday money lender over a $1,000 loan. Moreau won the case after presenting evidence that the payday lender was charging an interest rate of 100,000 per cent. The hearing officer refused to order Moreau’s client to even repay the principal, reasoning that would be enforcing an illegal contract.

Moreau adds: “What was even more satisfying was that, before this decision, the payday lender had its own mailbox at the Small Claims Court where it would routinely receive judgments. After this decision, the lender never won another judgment and stopped enforcing its loan agreement.”

After articling, Moreau was accepted for a prized clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada. He worked for Madam Justices Claire L’Heureux-Dubé and Marie Deschamps in both official languages.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he says. “You’re hearing some of the best lawyers argue cases. You’re reading some of the best written arguments that you’ll ever read. You get to have discussions with senior jurists and judges. I worked on some great cases.”

While at the Supreme Court, he met another law clerk, now his wife, Sophia Moreau. She is a law and philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. They live in Toronto with their two girls and twin boys.

Appeal applications

After his clerkship, Moreau worked as a legal counsel for the Supreme Court’s Law Branch, advising the judges on leave to appeal applications.

He soon landed a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Graduate Fellowship to study public law, human rights, and the Charter at the University of Toronto law school, earning a Master of Laws in 2004.

Five weeks later, he was hired as an associate by the Cavalluzzo law firm. He became a partner in 2010.

“It’s been terrific,” he says. “You’re given a lot of independence to do your own work. I have developed my own practice.”

In 2010, he was presented with a Making a Difference Award by Multiple Births Canada, an organization that advocates for multiple birth parents. He is on their advisory board.

As pro bono counsel to numerous employment insurance claimants, his work has set precedents in the areas of adoptive leave and write-off requests. Some 15 per cent of his cases are pro bono.

“I get a sense of real satisfaction when helping people settle a claim early so they don’t have to spend a year or two of their life in a fight. It’s also satisfying to actually argue and win cases in court,” he says.

“It’s kind of mom-and-pop to say that, but I do get satisfaction from just helping people.”