Browser not supportedJosée Forest-Niesing lives in Sudbury, Ontario. A lawyer by profession, she began her career in family law and continued to specialize in estate law, real property law, insurance law, civil law, education law and employment law.
She led numerous cases through trial in Sudbury and surrounding jurisdictions, as well as in Toronto. In addition, she has been a Superior Court of Justice Small Claims Court judge and a member of several professional associations and committees.
Ms. Forest-Niesing is proud to be Franco-Ontarian and to have recently discovered her Métis heritage. She is very dedicated to, and has passionately defended and promoted, access to justice in both official languages throughout her career. In addition to practising law for nearly 20 years at a law firm providing services in French, she has contributed to her community as a member or chair of numerous boards of directors, including the Art Gallery of Sudbury, the Carrefour francophone de Sudbury, and the University of Sudbury. She was also appointed to the Ontario Arts Council in January 2018.
As a student, she was a member of the Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO). She became a member of its board of directors, eventually serving two terms as its president. She subsequently joined the board of directors of the Fédération des associations de juristes d’expression française de common law in order to pursue the same objectives on a national level. She was the founding chair of the Centre canadien de français juridique as well as chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Official Languages Committee.
Ms. Forest-Niesing is a recipient of the AJEFO’s Order of Merit and was inducted into the University of Ottawa’s Common Law Honour Society.