Megan M. Schwartzentruber

Megan Schwartzentruber received her Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Sociology and Criminology as part of the Scholar’s Electives Program from the University of Western Ontario in 2006. Ms. Schwartzentruber went on to attend Osgoode Hall Law School from 2006 to 2009, during which time she was an active member of Osgoode Hall’s Women’s Caucus, serving as co-chair from 2007-2008.

Ms. Schwartzentruber joined Cooper, Sandler,  Shime & Bergman LLP as an articling student in August, 2009, became an associate lawyer with the firm as of June 16th, 2010 and joined the partnership on July 1, 2019. Since then, Ms. Schwartzentruber has assisted in the representation of clients before all levels of courts, including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, on a variety of criminal and quasi-criminal charges relating to murder, fraud, theft, robbery, break and enter, impaired driving and over 80, driving offences, sexual assault, assault, criminal harassment, weapons charges, breaches of conditional sentences and long-term offender supervision orders and offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. She has also assisted clients charged under regulatory statutes including the Income Tax Act, the Highway Traffic Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Police Services Act. She regularly represents clients with mental health issues and young persons and is a member of the Legal Aid Ontario Gladue Panel representing Indigenous clients.  Ms. Schwartzentruber has also represented several individuals seeking the removal of information from police reference and vulnerable sector checks, an issue on which she has also presented.  She has also occasionally acted as a per diem Assistant Crown Attorney and regularly provides legal advice to complainants as a member of the panel of lawyers available through the Ontario Independent Legal Advice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Program. In 2018 Ms. Schwartzentruber, along with Mark Sandler, was counsel to the College of Nurses of Ontario at the Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-term Care Homes System in St. Thomas, Ontario. She was also counsel, along with several other members of the firm, to the Honourable Gloria Epstein, Reviewer of the Independent Civilian Review into Missing Person Investigations in Toronto.

Ms. Schwartzentruber regularly volunteers in the legal community, including with Courtrooms and Classrooms in 2019 and as both a formal and informal mentor to junior criminal lawyers in various capacities. She served two terms on the Women’s Committee of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association and for several years has been an Adjunct Professor with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.  Ms. Schwartzentruber also co-coached the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s mooting team for the Arnup and Sopinka Cup competitions from 2015 to 2020 where the team competed at the provincial and national levels.  She is also involved in access to justice initiatives, including with Pro Bono Students Canada with whom she has been a supervising lawyer since 2012 for students from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Osgoode Hall Law School. Ms. Schwartzentruber has been asked to speak on a number of criminal law related issues, including most recently at the 2022 Law Society of Ontario’s Criminal Law Refresher.

Homicide
Driving Offences
Domestic Assaults
Drug Offences
Sexual Assaults
Professional Discipline Matters
Weapons Offences
LTSO Breaches
Charter Applications
Indigenous Offenders
Dangerous/Long-Term Offender
Background Checks
Records Suspension

J.D., Osgoode Hall Law School, 2009
B.A. Honours, University of Western Ontario, 2006

Ontario, 2010

Law Society of Ontario
Canadian Bar Association
Ontario Bar Association
Criminal Lawyers’ Association
Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD)

Special Considerations for Advising Sex Assault Complainants Living with HIV