Yavar Hameed

Lawyer / Avocat (he/him)

Ontario Bar 2001 | MA Carleton University (NPSIA) 2001 | LLB University of Ottawa 1999

I worked for three years at a labour law firm focusing on trade union law, employment law and human rights.  Working for trade unions was great – don’t get me wrong – but I decided that there had to be a more direct way in which the law could be used to engage with social change, that addresses both individual problems and systemic and structural injustice.

I wanted to help individuals and communities to resist injustice such as discrimination on the basis of poverty, police brutality, persecution of people on the basis of dissident political views, whistle blowing, racial profiling, deportation of migrants, Islamophobia, homophobia and abuse of prisoner rights.  Now eighteen years later, I have worked on important cases in all of these areas, which have helped me to develop advocacy skills that are relevant and responsive to individual problems within complex structural contexts.

Since 2009, I have also taught a seminar course at Carleton University’s Department of Law and Legal Studies entitled, State, Security and Dissent, in which I continue to explore contemporary and historical human rights problems in Canada with a focus upon the importance of material and ideological persecution of dissent by the state.

In my law practice, I focus on empowering clients to understand their rights and offer strategies to help them navigate, simplify and overcome disempowering and oppressive legal and social challenges.