Lara Koerner Yeo practices in the areas of public and administrative law, Charter and constitutional law, Indigenous rights and Aboriginal law, labour law, and pay equity and human rights law. She also works with the Employment Law and Litigation practice group on Crown liability issues. She has appeared before every level of court in Ontario and represents Indigenous, union, and institutional clients, as well as individuals in various non-adjudicative and adjudicative contexts, including in negotiations, mediation, grievance arbitration, judicial reviews, interventions, and appeals.
Lara’s Charter and human rights practice focuses on advancing pay equity and equality rights in female dominated workplaces and professions; as well as protecting workers’ freedoms of association and expression in the health care and postal sectors. In her administrative law practice, she represents clients in judicial reviews before the Divisional Court as well as in hearings before administrative tribunals, including the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal.
In Lara’s Indigenous rights and Aboriginal law practice, she works with Indigenous clients to advance the recognition and implementation of their Indigenous laws and the exercise of their inherent, Aboriginal and Treaty rights within Canada’s legal system. Lara works with First Nations on lands and resource issues providing advice on forestry and resource extraction matters, as well as land protection and conservation initiatives.
Lara is a committed Indigenous rights and women’s human rights advocate who volunteers her time in support of grassroots Indigenous and settler feminist organizers and anti-colonial, anti-racist and feminist movements. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) from 2015 to 2021 where her advocacy has focused on addressing the root causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls. In this capacity, she has worked with Human Rights Watch on the role of policing in the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls, contributing to Those Who Take Us Away (2013) and Police Abuse of Indigenous Women in Saskatchewan (2017).
Lara received her Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto in 2017, where she graduated with the Dean’s Leadership Award and a Certificate in Aboriginal Legal Studies. She completed a master’s in international human rights at SciencesPo where her graduate research focused on Indigenous and settler women’s organizations’ use of international and regional human rights law and fora to advance domestic law and policy reform in Canada.
In law school, Lara was a Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Law Society and the Feminist Law Students’ Association, a Senior Editor of the Indigenous Law Journal, a contributor to the International Human Rights Program’s Rights Review, and a Pro-Bono Student Canada volunteer with Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR). Lara participated in the International Human Rights Program's Clinic and the David Asper Centre’s Constitutional Advocacy Clinic. At Osgoode Hall Law School, she participated in the Intensive Program in Aboriginal, Lands, Resources and Governments. Prior to joining Cavalluzzo, Lara summered and articled with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General’s Crown Law Office Civil.
Notable cases
- Ontario Nurses’ Association v Participating Nursing Homes, 2019 ONSC 2168 (Div Ct)
- Ontario v Association of Ontario Midwives, 2020 ONSC 2839 (Div Ct)