James T. Casey

James (Jim) Casey is an experienced labour arbitrator and mediator from Edmonton, Alberta with over 25 years of adjudicative experience. He provides labour arbitration and mediation services in Alberta and in the North. Jim has issued over 150 labour arbitration and labour relations board decisions.

From 1977 to 1982 Jim attended the Bachelor of Commerce program at the University of Saskatchewan. He graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Commerce with distinction. He then worked for 2 years in human resources and labour relations in Edmonton before deciding to go to law school. He attended the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta starting in 1984 and graduating with distinction in 1987. He articled at Field Law and then began working at the firm as a labour lawyer with a broad practice representing employers, unions, and employees and working in the area of professional regulation.

Jim’s labour law career transitioned to an adjudicative focus and for 14 years he served as a part-time Vice-Chair of the Alberta Labour Relations Board adjudicating cases under the Labour Relations Code and the Public Service Employee Relations Act.  Jim also began to work as a labour arbitrator and mediator which became the focus of his labour law practice. Jim is on numerous labour arbitrator rosters including the Government of Alberta’s Grievance Arbitrators and Grievance Mediators rosters. For 5 years Jim taught Labour Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta as a sessional lecturer. Jim is a frequent speaker on labour law issues. He has served on the advisory committee of Lancaster’s annual Labour Arbitration and Policy Conference in Calgary, Alberta and has served as conference co-chair.

With respect to his professional regulatory practice, Jim founded Field Law’s Professional Regulatory Group and acted as legal counsel to numerous professional organisations. Working with his colleagues, Jim helped develop Field Law’s Professional Regulatory Group to become one of the largest in the country, focusing exclusively on representing professional regulators. Jim is considered to be one of the leading authorities in the law of professional regulation. He provided advice in all areas including discipline, registration, unauthorised practice, mobility, governance issues and the development of legislation. He has appeared twice before the Supreme Court of Canada, all levels of Courts in Alberta and numerous administrative tribunals. Jim also acted as independent counsel to professional regulatory tribunals. Jim focused a significant part of his practice on developing and providing training for regulators, their tribunals and staff. Jim helped design and present a comprehensive tribunal training program that has been used across Canada by Law Societies and other adjudicative agencies.

Jim is the author of many publications and articles in the field of labour relations and professional regulation. He is the author or co-author of 5 books. He is a contributing author and founding editor of “Remedies in Labour, Employment and Human Rights Law” which has been cited in decisions by many tribunals and Courts including the Supreme Court of Canada. Jim is also the author of many publications in the field of professional regulation. Jim’s book “The Regulation of Professions in Canada” is considered to be the leading legal text in professional regulation. See “Publications” for more details.