How Alex Miller bridged the gap between criminal law and labour and employment law at Osgoode

Alex Miller got her first exposure to labour and employment law from an unexpected source.

After articling and practising at a small criminal law firm, she didn’t think she would be making much of a professional leap when she applied to cover a maternity leave position at a GTA police service.

“From the outside, it looks like more criminal law work and at first, that’s what I thought it would be. In fact, there was so much more to the job. That’s where these other areas of the law came in to my practice, including labour and employment law and privacy law,” Miller says. “I really liked it and after 18 months, I took a permanent role at the Toronto Police Service.”

Learning on the job at the TPS, Miller built a solid foundation in labour and employment law issues handling the prosecution of police disciplinary cases. Still, she remained keen to complement her practical experience in the field and began exploring her options for further education.

“I knew the area because I was working in it, but I didn’t really have a deep understanding of the principles, policies and legislation underlying labour and employment law,” Miller explains.

Miller quickly settled on Osgoode’s part-time Professional LLM in Labour and Employment Law, attracted in part by the school’s outstanding reputation in the profession, as well as her positive experiences with its continuing legal education offerings. And the program lived up to her high expectations, making a lasting impact on her career that has extended beyond her 2022 graduation.   

“It has really helped me to see things through a different lens,” Miller says. “Every time I read a collective agreement or see what’s happening in the bargaining process, I have a deeper insight into the decision making and processes behind them.”

Growing up in an extended family with deep legal connections, Miller showed signs of her future career in litigation from a very early age.

“My parents always told me that I loved debating and arguing, so I think it was always going to be my destiny eventually,” she says.

“I did think about being a doctor, but I didn’t do well in chemistry in high school, so that was out of the question,” Miller adds, laughing.  

After graduating from law school at an Australian university, Miller returned to Canada to article and then practise in criminal defence with future-Ontario Provincial Court Justice Paul Cooper. Miller was thrown straight in at the deep end, assisting Cooper in his high-profile defence of a young Markham woman accused of murdering her parents.

“I was on the bottom rung of the ladder, but it was a very exciting experience,” Miller says. “The trial lasted for almost a year and after it was over, I think everyone needed a break to decompress.”

After making her move in-house, Miller broadened the scope of her advocacy, representing the interests of the TPS in a variety of forums, including various courts, administrative tribunals, mediations, inquests, boards and commissions.

Another key factor in her decision to enrol at Osgoode was the flexibility of its Labour and Employment Law LLM program, which allowed Miller to build her studies around her work. 

“I was slightly worried about how I was going to juggle it all: family, school, work and everything else,” Miller says. “The program is very well thought out in terms of the schedule, the assignments, the subject matter and the teaching. It never felt unmanageable to meet all your obligations and still lead a regular life, which was very important to me.”

Miller says Osgoode’s small class sizes and emphasis on practical learning were conducive to the development of bonds between classmates, who included lawyers from across the country in private practice and in government, as well as in-house counsel and other working professionals without formal legal training.

“It has really helped me to expand my network, because the people I networked with before were generally the same people I saw in court: lawyers and police officers,” she says. “Osgoode’s name draws in good, talented people from a variety of backgrounds. We had some who worked in human resources, as well as people from the corporate world. If I’m working on a case now that involves a university or a hospital, then I know someone from the program that I can call.”  

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