New OsgoodePD courses fill a gap in municipal law education 

Two brand new OsgoodePD programs will fill a longstanding gap in the continuing education offering available to municipal law professionals.

Jason Reynar, one of three program directors for the OsgoodePD’s Foundations in Municipal Law and Governance and the Osgoode Certificate in Municipal Law and Governance, earned an LLM with a specialization in municipal law early in his career, but says the lack of other dedicated programs is a common topic of conversation whenever he gets together with colleagues in the field.

“There is a gap there and it’s something that we’ve been talking about for a while,” says Reynar, a Municipal Law Partner in the Toronto office of Lerners LLP. “I really benefited from the LLM, but it’s a huge commitment in terms of time and resources. We wanted to come up with something that fits between your typical CPD workshop and a full municipal specialization degree that canvassed the full breadth of municipal law.”

“That’s when the certificate in municipal law and governance was born,” he adds.

Over the last two decades, Reynar has covered almost every angle in municipal law, having started his legal career in private practice performing defence work for cities in litigation, before taking an in-house role at the Town of Innisfill.

He eventually transitioned to management, spending seven years as a chief administrative officer – first for Inisfill and later at the City of Windsor – before returning to private practice at Lerners.

Wendy Law, another co-program director of Osgoode’s new certificate in municipal law, has spent her entire career in the municipal realm since her 2002 call to the bar. However, she says variety has been the key feature of her work during that time.

Currently the Director of Legislative and Property Services at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Law has previously held senior positions at the City of Mississauga and the City of Vaughan, where her dual executive role as city solicitor and deputy city manager entrusted her with leadership responsibilities for both the municipality’s legal and administrative operations.

“Municipalities have so many lines of business that you get opportunities to broaden your experience and expose yourself to very different areas,” she says. “For example, I started my career providing legal advice on bylaw enforcement matters, and subsequently took on commercial and procurement work.  I was able to dedicate a year of my time to mostly IT transactions and learned a niche area. Then I had opportunities to run work on planning and development issues, largescale construction infrastructure projects and governance matters dealing with council.”

“I’ve never had two days the same,” agrees the final program director Wendy Walberg.

After clerking at the Ontario Court (General Division) in the early 1990s, Walberg followed her interest in administrative law to a role in the city solicitor’s office at the City of Toronto. Over the next three decades, she worked her way through the ranks to become the City Solicitor herself. She has been head of the City of Toronto’s Legal Services Division since 2017.

“We operate in a unique environment and within a unique framework, so having a program that helps people to navigate that and learn from seasoned municipal law experts is a great thing for the profession,” Walberg says. “I’m looking forward to hearing the perspectives of the other faculty, as well as attendees from other municipalities, large and small.”

The Foundations in Municipal Law and Governance consists of two self-paced modules providing registrants with a practical introduction to the legal and governance frameworks that shape Ontario municipalities.

Those who wish to carry on complete must complete four further day-long modules – proceeding online or in-person over two weeks in February and March 2026 – to earn the full Osgoode Certificate in Municipal Law and Governance.

In addition to lawyers working in private practice or in-house for municipalities, Reynar says the programs should also appeal to municipal staff who are in, or aspire to fill leadership positions, such as city managers, council members, CAOs, clerks and treasurers.  

“This program is going to be really helpful to give them a grounding in the foundations of municipal law, which come up every day in those roles,” he says.