Rosemary (Rosie) Basa
Rosie was Shell Lawyers’ first summer law student, returned to article after completing her legal education at the University of Ottawa, and has now joined the Shell Lawyers team as an Associate.
Rosie assists and advises our clients on a wide-range of work-related subjects including civil litigation, labour and human rights, with a focus on social justice issues.
Rosie became interested in social justice issues while studying sociology and psychology at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus. She believes that real change cannot occur unless differences are accommodated and historical disadvantages recognized. As a result, she volunteered for agencies that assist women and the disabled throughout her undergraduate studies. While at law school, Rosie continued to be involved with cultural groups so as to promote the talent and diversity of the Law Faculty.
Rosie intends to use her legal training in a way that is consistent with her passions and beliefs – to advance the cause of the underrepresented by giving them a persuasive and powerful voice. That objective is one that all of her colleagues at Shell Lawyers share with her. It is one of the raisons d’ętre of the firm
Rosie is also devoted to union-side labour law. Her interest was kindled while pursuing an intensive program in the grievance arbitration system at law school and her participating in the Hicks Morley Moot, a labour-arbitration competition between students enrolled in law schools across Ontario. Union-side labour law connects a passion to advance equality rights with the economic struggles that workers face in the globalized economy.
Further, the importance of unions to ordinary people is significant to Rosie because she was a member and volunteer of UFCW Local 1000A. On behalf of UFCW Canada and Local 1000A, Rosie conducted “Talking Union” presentations to high school students in the Greater-Toronto-Area and Ottawa regions. As a former retail employee working in a unionized environment, Rosie understands and experienced first hand the value of unions and the importance of knowing her rights at work.
Rosie is thrilled to begin her legal career in a way that will contribute to improved working conditions and to the success of unions down the road. She appreciates that at Shell Lawyers cases are advanced that have a real and long lasting impact on jurisprudential developments that assist unionized workers and across a range of different sectors of the Ontario and Canadian economies.
At Shell Lawyers, Rosie is also experiencing the active and innovative strategic advice and assistance skilled counsel can provide to non-union employees faced with discharge, discipline and work related problems or who have been terminated and require assistance in winning a monetary battle for a fair settlement and pay in lieu of notice.
Rosie comments: “The opportunity to work with Shell Lawyers is extraordinary for me. I am able to have close interaction with experienced and dedicated counsel and to follow a case as the matter develops from an idea to a pleading to litigation, mediation, or settlement. I am learning how to provide solutions for clients and how to connect their expectations with what is within the range of the possible. This opportunity will allow me to contribute in the future in a meaningful way.
Here at Shell Lawyers, the ethos of the place reflects a real commitment to equality issues, to the advancement of minority rights in the workplace and beyond and to fundamental justice.”
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