Jill R. Presser

Jill R Presser was called to the Ontario bar in 1997. She is the principal lawyer at the law firm of Presser Barristers, where her practice is primarily devoted to appellate criminal defence, mental health, digital privacy and digital rights, and artificial intelligence law. Jill regularly appears in courts at all levels, including the Supreme Court of Canada. In addition to representing parties at the Supreme Court, she has represented a number of interveners in that Court, including the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, The Advocates’ Society, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She was a staff lawyer to the Honourable Stephen Goudge on the Commission of Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario.

Jill is often appointed amicus curiae by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in appeals involving unrepresented mentally disordered appellants. She is vice-chair of the Pro Bono Inmate Appeal Duty Counsel Program in the Court of Appeal for Ontario and assists that Court as pro bono duty counsel for unrepresented inmate appellants. She prosecuted for the Attorney General of Ontario on a part-time basis from 2001 to 2007. Jill was an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 2011 to 2016. She is the founding co-chair of the Criminal Law and Technology Committee of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association and a long-standing member of its Litigation and Mental Health Committees. She teaches, writes, and speaks on a variety of topics in relation to criminal law, mental health, law and technology, artificial intelligence and the law, privacy and surveillance, and women in the legal profession. Jill is a co-author of A Guide to Mental Disorder Law in Canadian Criminal Justice (Lexis Nexis).

She has also written a number of articles and book chapters, including “Mom’s Rea: Motherhood, Criminal Defence, and Guilt” in Women in Criminal Justice (Trudell and Shyba, eds, Durville Publications). The only thing she loves more than being in the courtroom, writing, and teaching is spending time with her two amazing children.