Legal Action

Toronto attorney Denise Dwyer is transforming her industry by mentoring young Black women

- Sarah Hagi

THE FIRST WOMAN in the British Empire to become a lawyer was a Canadian named Clara Brett Martin. She was called to the bar in 1897, after years of hostility from her male teachers and peers. Her achievement had little impact, however, on the access women of colour had to the profession: it took nearly six more decades before a Canadian Black woman—Violet King Henry—became a lawyer. For one of Henry’s successors, Denise Dwyer, the gap between Black women and their white counterparts remains a major concern.

Dwyer—who was called to the bar in 1991 and is now an  assistant deputy minister at the Ontario Ministry of Education—thinks that bringing Black female lawyers together is an integral part of their pathway to success. That belief stems from the early days of her career. While working for the Ministry of the Attorney General as a young lawyer, Dwyer noticed something: “The presence of Black people was far more predominant in the role of the accused than it was in the Crown,” she says. “It was kind of lonely.”