Michael A. Hines

Michael Hines is a senior management-side labour lawyer working in Hicks Morley’s Toronto office. Michael has nearly 40 years of experience advising employers on all aspects of labour and human rights law, with a particular focus on the police and school board sectors. His practice involves a broad range of employment law issues, with an emphasis on human rights matters, complex arbitrations, judicial review applications, and constitutional litigation.

Michael has acted as counsel to more than two-thirds of Ontario’s public school boards and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association on such matters as labour relations, teacher injunctions, school closures, teacher dismissals, board governance, equality rights and collective bargaining. He has appeared in the Ontario Divisional Court on more than 40 occasions and has acted as counsel in several constitutional law and employment law matters before the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Michael has specialized experience in the steel manufacturing, forestry, municipal and news media sectors, and has been successful in precedent-setting arbitration, human rights and labour board decisions. He is a frequent speaker on the duty of accommodation and constitutional law issues and has taught “Advanced Topics in Labour and Employment Law” as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and the Western University Faculty of Law, most recently in 2019.