Carol Anne O'Brien, Barrister & Solicitor

About Carol Anne O'Brien, Barrister & Solicitor

Carol Anne O'Brien, Barrister & Solicitor is a solo Toronto practice founded in 2010, after Carol Anne O'Brien spent 12 years, six of them as a partner, at the business law firm Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. Called to the Ontario bar in 1998, O'Brien built the practice around Canadian regulatory law: helping businesses comply with the Competition Act, federal and provincial privacy legislation, and Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, and navigate specialized regimes covering broadcasting and telecommunications, cultural industries, and food, drug, cosmetic, and medical device products. The practice works independently, and brings in other lawyers and professional service providers when a matter calls for it.

Before law, O'Brien worked in libraries and information services: as a librarian at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, a business information specialist at Polysar in Sarnia, and a library manager at Health Canada in Ottawa. That background carried into volunteer work. O'Brien served on the Board of Directors of the Southern Ontario Library Service from 2009 to 2016, an organization that supplies resources and services to Ontario's public libraries, and was Vice-Chair of the board from 2012 to 2016. O'Brien holds a B.A. Hons. from Queen's University, a Master of Library Science from the University of Toronto, and an LL.B. from the University of Ottawa.