About the Authors

• Author: Brock Jones/Sarah Leece/Mary Birdsell/Emma Rhodes
• Pages: 31-33

xxxi

About the Authors

Justice Brock Jones, BA (Queen’s) 2000, MA (Toronto) 2001, JD (Toronto) 2004,

was appointed a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice on December30, 2021.After

graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, Justice Jones served

as a law clerk to the chief justice of the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto. He then

joined the Scarborough Crown Attorney’s Oce where he acted as director of its youth

justice team. Justice Jones was also Crown counsel at the Crown Law Oce—Criminal

in Ontario between 2013 and 2016 and argued several youth justice cases before the

Ontario Court of Appeal. In 2016, he won the Ontario Bar Association’s Heather

McArthur Memorial Young Lawyers Award. In 2020, he won the OBA Award of

Excellence in Criminal Justice.

Justice Jones presides in Toronto.

Sarah Leece was called to the Bar in 2006 after completing her law degree at Queen’s

University. She articled and has worked her entire career as an Assistant Crown in the

Metro West Crown Attorney’s Oce and has prosecuted a wide range of oences at

both the provincial and superior courts of justice. Beginning in 2011, Ms Leece began

exclusively prosecuting youth matters and, in 2016, became the lead of a dedicated

youth team at the Metro West Crown Attorney’s Oce. Ms Leece is a course director

for the annual YCJA course presented by the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association

and also presents on the YCJA at other courses and educational events. In addition,

in 2011, Ms Leece was instrumental in the creation of Etobicoke’s Youth Community

Restoration Court, which deals with young persons with mental health or develop-

mental issues who are facing criminal charges.

Mary Birdsell, BA (University of Alberta) 1988, LLB (Dalhousie) 1994, is the exec-

utive director of Justice for Children and Youth (JFCY). Mary graduated from Dal-

housie University Law School having been active in the law school’s legal clinic. She

was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1996. In her career at JFCY, Mary has been deeply

involved in all aspects of its work: community development, public legal education,

law reform, and client representation. As counsel, and now as director at Canada’s

only organization oering legal services exclusively to young people across a range of

legal subject areas, Mary has represented young people in Ontario youth courts under

© 2024 Emond Montgomery Publications. All Rights Reserved.