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A Labour of Love: Caregiving, Resilience and the Practice of Law + E-Book
In this collection of personal essays, more than 15 lawyers write candidly about the realities of balancing professional ambition with the demands of caregiving, challenging long-standing assumptions about what commitment to the law is supposed to look like.
Langue de publication: English
Publié: 13 août 2026
Éditeur: LexisNexis Canada
What does it mean to build a legal career while also caring for children, parents, partners, siblings, friends, and oneself? In A Labour of Love: Caregiving, Resilience and the Practice of Law, more than 15 lawyers write candidly about the realities of balancing professional ambition with the demands of caregiving, challenging long-standing assumptions about what commitment to the law is supposed to look like.
Edited by Neha Chugh and Anne-Marie McElroy, this collection of personal essays span a wide range of experiences, including infertility, postpartum depression, disability, adoptive parenting, fatherhood, co-parenting, eldercare, grief, and end-of-life care. Together, they offer an unvarnished account of how caregiving shapes legal practice, career paths, and ideas of success within the profession.
Clear-eyed and deeply relevant, A Labour of Love: Caregiving, Resilience and the Practice of Law gives voice to experiences that have too often remained private and makes the case for a legal culture that better reflects the lives of the people within it.
Contributing Authors
The Honourable Justice Jill R. Presser (Ontario Superior Court of Justice)
Neha Chugh (criminal, child protection and family lawyer)
Anne-Marie McElroy (criminal defence lawyer)
Kyla Lee (lawyer and author, impaired driving law and cross-examination strategy)
Hamna Anwar (criminal defence lawyer)
Julia Lockhart (partner at Nathanson, Schachter and Thompson LLP)
Tami Moscoe (Personal Rights Counsel, Office of the Children’s Lawyer)
Anna Trbovich (criminal lawyer)
Patrick Hamilton (environmental lawyer)
Stephen Shaddock (lawyer)
Alison Southern (family lawyer)
Karine Veilleux Jackson (family lawyer, mediator and child-focused advocate)
Shalini Konanur (Executive Director and senior lawyer at the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario)
Steven Ngo (technology lawyer and adjunct professor at Peter A. Allard School of Law)
Joanna Radbord (family lawyer with McCarthy Hensen & Company LLP)
Cameron Mianda-Radbord (first-year student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law)
Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich (lawyer, legal scholar and educator)
Anita Szigeti (mental health lawyer)
Brenda Hollingsworth (award-winning litigator and law firm owner)
Shannon Chace (Executive Legal Officer of the Court of Appeal for Ontario)
Foreword: Care is What Justice Looks Like in Private – The Honourable Justice Jill R. Presser
Preface
Chapter 1: Carrying the Weight: Surface Pressure and the Invisible Load of the Single, Child-free Caregiver – Kyla Lee
Chapter 2: My Paradoxical Body: Navigating Infertility as a Criminal Defence Lawyer – Hamna Anwar
Chapter 3: There is Nothing to be Done, and Other Lies Postpartum Depression Told Me – Julia K. Lockhart
Chapter 4: Motherhood and Law: Two Amazing Journeys That Look Nothing Like What I Expected 30 Years Ago – Tami Moscoe
Chapter 5: Lawyering and Caregiving for a Loved One with a Disability – Anna Trbovich and Patrick Hamilton
Chapter 6: On Ambition – Neha Chugh
Chapter 7: Indigenous-Settler Intercultural Adoptive Parenting: A Personal Journey – Stephen Shaddock
Chapter 8: On Being the Trailing Spouse: How Adapting My Practice to Support My Spouse’s Career (Eventually) Resulted in My Own Career Happiness – Alison Southern
Chapter 9: When Advocacy Becomes Personal – Karine Veilleux Jackson
Chapter 10: Living at the Intersections: Lawyering and Mothering a Disabled Child – Shalini Konanur
Chapter 11: Rethinking Fatherhood in the Legal Profession – Steven Ngo
Chapter 12: Who is Your Real Mother? A Mother-Child Conversation about Parenting and Law – Joanna Radbord and Cameron Miranda-Radbord
Chapter 13: Don’t Forget You Love to Swim: Caregiving as a Co-Parent and Lawyer Mom – Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich
Chapter 14: The Best Laid PLANs: Parenting Little Adults Now – Anita Szigeti
Chapter 15: The Second Act – Brenda Hollingsworth
Chapter 16: Caregiving Crunch: When Things Don’t Go As Planned – Anne-Marie McElroy
Chapter 17: At the End of the Day: Lawyering and Caregiving at End of Life – Shannon Chace
