Susan leads the firm's pension and benefits practice and is co-head of the Employment Services Practice Group. She advises both public and private companies and other organizations on issues relating to plan governance, administration and compliance, pension fund investment and fiduciary duties. She also advises on pension and benefit issues arising in corporate transactions as well as insolvencies and restructurings. Susan assists with executive compensation matters and supplementary retirement plans, and advises clients on a full range of employee benefit issues arising in the general employment law and unionized context. She also advises clients on pension plan wind ups and conversions, pension asset transfers and surplus payments, and regularly counsels pension committees and boards with respect to pension governance matters.
In addition to her practice, Susan regularly writes and speaks on pension and employee benefit topics, and is the author of both the Halsbury's Laws of Canada volume on pensions and the Ontario Pension Law Handbook, Second edition. She has served on the teaching faculty of The Osgoode Certificate Program in Pension Law and The Directors College on pension governance issues. In addition, she completed her part-time LL.M. (Labour and Employment) at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Susan has been a member of the Executive of the Canadian Bar Association's National Pension and Benefits Law Section and was actively involved in submissions on legislative reform in the pension area. Her other professional memberships include the Association of Canadian Pension Management, the Pension and Benefits Section of the Ontario Bar Association and the Canadian Pension Benefits Institute. Prior to joining Bennett Jones, she led the pension practice at the Toronto office of an international law firm and was also previously with a major Canadian benefits consulting firm.