Both of Emily’s parents were lawyers. Her father was a successful litigator, a generalist who became an expert in constitutional law, while her mother left law to be a stay-at-home mother and then a full-time painter. So, art and law have always been part of her life.
When Emily was ten, her father took her to hear a human rights case he successfully argued before the Supreme Court of Canada, representing a young girl against her elementary school district. Emily realized that becoming a lawyer meant she could make positive change in the world and that law might be for her.
“The moment I realized I wanted to be a lawyer was when I attended the hearing at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ross v New Brunswick School District No 15 ([1996] 1 SCR 825). My father advocated on behalf of David Attis and his daughter, a Jewish girl of my age who had been intimidated into not participating in extracurricular activities at a school in New Brunswick as a result of Malcom Ross’ anti-Semitic influence in his classroom. At that time, I was proud to be his daughter, I was proud to be Jewish and I wanted to be like my father.”
Emily completed her dance studies with Ballet Divertimento in 2009, and spent summers at Springboard Danse Montreal, Canada’s National Ballet School, the Banff Centre and New York University’s Tisch School. In summer 2007, she was an apprentice at Rebecca Kelly Ballet New York. Her professional career as a contemporary ballet dancer lasted more ten years and she danced with Canadian companies across the country, as well as in the United States, Europe and Bangkok, Thailand.
After retiring from dance, she went into law thinking she would become a litigator like her father. It was in her Introduction to Tax Law course, or “Baby Tax” as she fondly refers to it, that she found her niche. She loved the less-frenzied nature of tax law, as well as the mental challenges the facts and the Income Tax Act offered. She appreciated the quiet deliberation after many years under the pressure of rehearsing and performing in front of an audience.
Emily showed her drive and determination both on the academic and personal fronts. During her time at Fauteux, she won the Aird & Berlis LLP Prize, as well as the Honourable Ray Lawson Scholarship (named for the former Ontario lieutenant governor) for best performance by a first-year student in the Common Law Section. She also won an Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History award for achieving one of the highest standings among common law graduating classes. Between the 2L and 3L school years, she gave birth to her second child and moved to Toronto. While there, she chose to complete her articles at McCarthy Tétrault LLP, because she felt the firm was a beacon of integrity and respect, values she cherishes. She was called to the Ontario bar in 2020.
When asked which professors had a positive impact on her, Leduc Gagné mentions Constance Backhouse and Michael Pal.
“Constance has such a vast wealth of knowledge about the history of law, and her ability to synthesize it and present it during class still inspires my writing to this day. As for Professor Pal, I looked up to him for his mastery of constitutional law and his embodiment of integrity. I knew I could go to him for anything.”
On September 25, she moderated a session of Massey College’s 2020 French and the Law symposium (in French) featuring keynote speaker Professor Fernand de Varennes, United Nations special rapporteur on minority issues.
Emily speaks English, French, Hebrew and American Sign Language. Living with an auditory processing disorder, she learned ASL to communicate with her family. Even before learning of her condition, she was volunteering for the Student Academic Success Services as a note-taker. She strongly believes in the importance of providing people with the appropriate accommodations to allow everyone to achieve the success they are capable of with the proper tools and support.
“One of my colleagues in law school once asked me why I was registered as a note taker for students with disabilities — didn’t I want to keep my notes for myself? The short answer was: No. Equality does not mean treating everyone alike. A student with dyslexia or a short-term memory dysfunction, for example, has a significant disadvantage as compared to able students. If sharing my lecture notes could close that gap even slightly, I was happy to do so. Accommodations help put differently-abled individuals on the same starting line as everyone else. Accommodations are not a head start — they’re the basis for a fair race. Ironically, I discovered after law school that I have a severe auditory processing disorder and wasn’t ‘hearing’ the lectures, but rather, I was reading the professors’ lips.”
Emily Leduc Gagné is now a first-year associate at McCarthy Tétrault. She maintains a general tax planning practice and is currently completing a master’s in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She and her family split their time between Toronto and la Côte-Nord, in Quebec.