Jennifer Shuber

About Jennifer Shuber

At Gelman & Associates, Jennifer Shuber works as a senior lawyer and an accredited family mediator, and for more than twenty years family law is the only area Jennifer has practised. That means helping people with everything a marriage or its breakdown can raise: domestic contracts, property, support and questions about the children. Many of Jennifer's files are the difficult ones, involving high conflict, complicated custody and access fights, or a lot of wealth on the table. Clients Jennifer represents get a lawyer who can negotiate a resolution out of court or litigate the case on their behalf. The Law Society of Ontario has certified Jennifer as a Specialist in Family Law.

Jennifer earned an LL.B. and a Master of Social Work at the University of Toronto in 1995 and was called to the Ontario bar in 1997. Articles at a large Bay Street firm led to work in its family law department, and Jennifer later practised family law at a smaller Toronto firm. In 2006 Jennifer moved to Basman Smith LLP, became a partner there in 2007 and earned the specialist certification in 2009, before a period with Beard Winter LLP. Jennifer joined Gelman & Associates in 2019, based in Toronto. Along the way Jennifer has argued cases in every level of court in Ontario, the Court of Appeal included.

Mediation is a big part of what Jennifer offers. Jennifer holds two family mediation accreditations and has been appointed a Dispute Resolution Officer for the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto. In mediation, Jennifer draws on social work training as well as the law to help clients find creative ways through a dispute. By 2016 Jennifer was cross-appointed as a lecturer in the University of Toronto's law and social work faculties, teaching family mediation to students in both programs. Jennifer has written or co-written many papers on mediation, arbitration, custody and access, and speaks at continuing education programs on topics like parental alienation and domestic contracts.

Jennifer's style is practical and focused on solutions, and no two clients or cases get treated the same way. As a divorced parent of a teenage son, Jennifer comes to each matter with a personal understanding of what separating families face. Away from work, Jennifer loves to travel, practise yoga, read fiction and head to the cottage, and has a real fondness for canoe trips and Algonquin Park.