Jeff Palamar Partner

Jeff’s career has focused on dispute resolution in all aspects of the workplace, including collective bargaining, drafting employment contracts and policies, management of employees, workplace safety and health disputes, privacy matters, human rights and accommodation issues, discrimination and harassment claims, and wrongful or unjust dismissal claims as well as interest and rights arbitrations. He also practices sport law.

Jeff has been honoured to be listed among the peer-selected “Best Lawyers in Canada” in employment and labour law every year since 2008.

As a partner and leader of the Labour and Employment Law Practice Group at Taylor McCaffrey LLP, Jeff’s work includes practical advice as well as creative and effective advocacy for clients, and mentoring of those newer to the profession. He is recognized as principled and fair, appreciative of the reality there are always different perspectives, and so has been accepted as an open-minded and experienced solution-facilitator and decision-maker in many contexts.

Jeff first served as an arbitrator with the Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission over 20 years ago. He later became a Canada Labour Code adjudicator and referee and heard cases for about a decade, until the system changed and the CIRB assumed those functions. Since approximately 2010 he has served as an arbitrator or mediator of grievances arising under collective agreements between employers and unions.

Since 2014 Jeff has been named to a national list of arbitrators appointed to decide disputes under the Sport Dispute Resolution Code of Canada. He currently is a member of the Doping Panel, the Safeguarding Panel, and the Ordinary Panel.

Jeff is the primary member for Taylor McCaffrey LLP as the exclusive Manitoba member of the Employment Law Alliance. The ELA is the world’s largest network of labour and employment lawyers, with representation in more than 120 countries, every Canadian province and all 50 U.S. states.

Jeff approaches everything with enthusiasm and gratitude for being able to make a positive difference. This passion has inspired him to volunteer with organizations such as The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Prairie Theatre Exchange, the United Way, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, and Sport Manitoba.

Volunteer highlights include being selected four times as Team Canada’s Ombudsperson with the Canadian Paralympic Committee, for the Paralympic Games in Beijing, Vancouver/Whistler, London and Sochi. Jeff has also been a multi-year fundraiser for and on-stage performer in the annual co-production between the Manitoba Bar Association and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.

Jeff also teaches employment law at the University of Manitoba’s law school Robson Hall.