David Taylor

David is the Managing Partner at Conway. He maintains a bilingual litigation and advisory practice that focuses on public law, appellate advocacy, minority rights, and the relationship between the citizen and the State. For the last eight years, he has been counsel of record in the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada’s complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal concerning the inequities in Canada’s system for providing child and family services (child welfare) on-reserve and in Canada’s implementation of Jordan’s Principle.

David has significant experience in complex litigation. From 2013-2019, David was a key member of the plaintiffs’ trial and appellate team in the most significant comprehensive claim regarding French-language education rights under the Charter (238-day trial, 5-day appeal to the Court of Appeal and a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada). David’s and his colleagues’ work as pro bono counsel for the Caring Society led to a historic victory in 2016 and multiple remedial orders since. From 2016-2021, David was one of the counsel to the Independent Assessor under the Merlo Davidson class action settlement agreement, addressing claims related to gender- and sexual orientation-based harassment and discrimination towards women in the RCMP from 1974 to 2017.

David has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada on eight occasions and has also appeared before a number of courts and administrative tribunals at the federal level and in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Prior to being called to the bar, David was a law clerk to Madam Justice Andromache Karakatsanis of the Supreme Court of Canada.  Before beginning his legal career, David spent five years working for the Senate of Canada’s Administrative Branch. David has relied on this experience when advising clients matters regarding parliamentary privilege and parliamentary procedure.