Jena McGill is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), and a member of the Law Society of Ontario.
Jena is a graduate of the joint J.D./M.A. program of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, and she served as a law clerk to Justice Louise Charron at the Supreme Court of Canada. Jena worked at the United Nations International Law Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, and completed her graduate studies in law (LL.M.) at Yale Law School, where she focused on human rights and equality issues related to gender, sexuality and the law.
Jena researches in the areas of Canadian constitutional law (with a focus on equality law); gender and sexuality; women, peace and security in international law; feminist legal theory; and legal technology as a vehicle to promote access to justice. Her work on section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2014 Jena was a Visiting Scholar at the Kent Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality at Kent Law School in Canterbury, UK. In 2016, Jena was the Principal Investigator on a SSHRC-funded project exploring the risks and opportunities of using mobile and web-based apps to enhance access to justice, with co-investigators Professors Suzanne Bouclin and Amy Salyzyn. The final project report, entitled Emerging Technological Solutions to Access to Justice Problems: Opportunities and Risks of Mobile and Web-based Apps can be found here. In 2017-2019, the same research team, along with Professor Teresa Scassa and with funding support from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, developed A Best Practices Guide for Improving Privacy Practices for Legal Apps,
Jena teaches or has taught Tort Law, Constitutional Law and Introduction to Feminist Legal Thought in the first year program, as well as upper year seminars on Gender, Sexuality and the Law and Advanced Equality Rights.