MacDonald & Associates

About MacDonald & Associates

MacDonald & Associates is a small Toronto employment law practice founded by Natalie C. MacDonald. The firm formed after the dissolution of MacDonald's earlier firm, which had run for four years and, in its last two years, was ranked among the top three employment and labour law firms in Canada in Canadian HR Reporter's Readers' Choice Awards. MacDonald & Associates now practises out of an office tower at Yonge and Bloor in midtown Toronto and works only in Canadian employment law, acting for both employers and employees rather than choosing one side.

On the employer side, the firm advises on hiring, workplace policies, employment contracts, restrictive covenants, human rights compliance and workplace investigations. On the employee side, it reviews severance offers and represents people who believe they were wrongfully or constructively dismissed. MacDonald wrote 'Extraordinary Damages in Canadian Employment Law' (Carswell, 2010), a textbook on damage awards in wrongful dismissal cases that has been cited in eight reported court decisions in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and in one federal labour arbitration decision. MacDonald also acted as counsel in Galea v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp., a 2017 Ontario Superior Court decision in which the client was awarded $500,000 in punitive damages and $250,000 in moral damages.