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| Michelle Lomazzo |
The program offers a foundational overview of workplace safety insurance law for practitioners, with instruction as well as insight into WSIB claims decision-making and the appeal process. Students will take a client case from the start of an appeal right through to its conclusion, including a mock trial. A comprehensive overview of the law, policy and statutory framework will be provided, and students will learn about management strategies for effective case handling in WSIB appeals, as well as how to identify the key issues and gather the right evidence. Finally, students will be taught techniques for writing persuasive submissions.
Best practices for preparing witness and presenting cases at oral hearings will also be taught. The program is led by industry experts and the hands-on experience will provide participants with the essential knowledge and skills needed to handle a WSIB appeal, whether representing employers or workers.
Co-lead instructors Michelle Zare, paralegal and founder of Zare Paralegal Services, and Antony Singleton, lawyer and founder of the Law Office of Antony Singleton, are well-known advocates in workplace safety insurance law. Both have taught extensively in this field.
While the course is online, there will be opportunity for mentorship and in-person engagement with numerous impressive, well-known guest speakers from the workplace safety insurance field. If you’ve always wanted to learn more about this challenging and interesting area of practice, you don’t want to miss this course. There’s still time to register and it’s OSAP eligible. Please click this link to register.
There were over 240,000 claims filed in 2023 at the WSIB, thousands of appeals at the WSIB level and about 4,000 active appeals each year at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT). Having practised in this specialized practice area of law for the past 30-pus years, I can attest that this course is needed. While the Law Society of Ontario and the Ontario Bar Association offer some excellent CPDs, this 36-hour comprehensive foundational program is overdue. Practitioners wanting to expand into the WSIB/WSIAT appeals arena can now do so.
My hope is that Windsor Law will continue to build on this foundational certificate program, so that in time, we have fully knowledgeable advocates in the field of workplace safety insurance law. And more good news? If the timing isn’t right for you, this course will be offered again in fall 2025.
Windsor Law’s focus on programming that is accessible to licensed paralegals, as well as lawyers, in areas of law where there aren’t substantive and intensive courses available elsewhere is truly commendable. Legal practitioners need to serve the communities they represent, and obtaining the knowledge is challenging when courses aren’t readily available. This program, offered in conjunction with the WSIB, fulfills an access-to-justice need and Windsor Law should be congratulated.
Michelle Lomazzo was elected a paralegal bencher at the Law Society of Ontario in 2019. She has worked as an injured worker advocate for several years in Windsor, Ont. Through her legal services practice, Lomazzo Workers Compensation Appeals Professional Corporation, she specializes in workers compensation appeals before the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and regularly appears before the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT).
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