Osgoode certificate program brings pension law out of the shadows

Pension law is the kind of practice area that hides in plain sight.

As home to some of the largest and most influential investors in the world, Canada’s pension sector has an outsized impact on the country’s economy. Meanwhile, many working Canadians will have an interest in the sector when the time comes to retire.

And yet, few of the freshly graduated law students who cycle through Jeffrey Sommers’ pensions, benefits and executive compensation practice group during their articling term at Blake, Cassels and Graydon LLP have even heard of pension law.

“It’s not well known as a specific area of law when you’re getting into a legal career, so we end up getting people who might never have been exposed to it otherwise,” Sommers says. “When they get into pension law, they tend to really like it. We don’t have any problems attracting people once they’ve experienced it.”

In February, Sommers will bring some pension law exposure to an even broader range of professionals at The Osgoode Certificate in Pension Law, where he serves as co-program director with Kim Ozubko.

Pension law never crossed Ozubko’s radar until long after she left her hometown Winnipeg to pursue her passion for law at Osgoode, where she earned her LLB in 1997.

“Pensions were not on my mind at law school,” she says. “Now I’ve spent most of my career in the area.”

Ozubko has worked in a variety of legal roles – both in private practice and as in-house counsel – over the past 25 years and is currently the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for actuarial consulting firm Eckler. During that time, she has witnessed a radical shift in the sector.

“When I started, there were a lot of plans seeking opinions regarding their surplus funds,” she says. “Then the economy interfered with the type of work we did.”

One of the most notable changes in the pension landscape has been the gradual disappearance of defined benefit pension plans from the private sector as employers sought to reduce the balance-sheet liabilities associated with the provision of a guaranteed level of benefits for retirees.

That in turn led to the emergence of defined contribution plans – sponsored by employers to run alongside or in place of their closed DB plans – along with a whole host of fresh legal risks and complexities.

Now in its 15^th year, Osgoode’s Pension Law Certificate has evolved in tandem with industry trends, according to Sommers. For example, this year’s program features a session on the increasing use of annuitization by pension plans as a risk management strategy.

“That’s a whole area that wasn’t there four or five years ago, but is now a mainstay of the course,” Sommers says. “Every year, we’re making tweaks and additions to reflect developments in the law.”

Ozubko says she would recommend the Pension Law Certificate to young lawyers hoping to develop their own pension law practice or whose current work touches on pensions and benefit issues. The program is also popular with HR and finance professionals, as well as with employees of provincial and federal pension regulators.

Over the course of six modules – delivered online across dates in February and March 2025 – she says attendees will gain a comprehensive grounding in the complex and technical area of pension law and regulation, with sessions touching on key topics such as the basics of the retirement system, pension funding and investments, pension governance and legislative updates from across the country.

“It provides a really good overview of the key legal issues you need to know about and it’s also a great way to meet others in the industry,” Ozubko adds.

Attendees who want to dig deeper into the issues raised during the pension law certificate program may wish to explore their options at Osgoode. For example, Osgoode’s extensive part-time professional LLM offering includes specializations in related areas, such as Taxation Law or Labour and Employment Law.

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