Our People

Mary Jane Dykeman is a managing partner at INQ Law. In addition to data law, she is a long-standing health lawyer.

 

Her data practice focuses on privacy, artificial intelligence (AI), cyber preparedness and response, and data governance. She regularly advises on use and disclosure of identifiable and de-identified data. Mary Jane applies a strategic, risk and innovation lens to data and emerging technologies. She helps clients identify the data they hold, understand how to use it within the law, and how to innovate responsibly. In her health law practice, Mary Jane focuses on clinical and enterprise risk, privacy and information management, consent, capacity and substitute decision-making, and counseling through difficult situations, including at the end of life. She has acted in general counsel roles to three Toronto teaching hospitals, currently as interim VP Legal/Risk to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; and was instrumental in the development of Ontario’s health privacy legislation. 

 

Mary Jane regularly consults on large data initiatives and use of data for health research and quality purposes. Her consulting work extends to modernizing privacy legislation and digital societies in the private and public sectors, and she works with Boards, CEOs and CIOs on the emerging risks and trends in data. Mary Jane regularly speaks on AI, cyber risk and how to better engage and build trust with clients and customers whose data is at play. Her most recent in person speaking engagements on AI, cyber, and data governance were in Dubai, UAE, Boston, and Toronto.

 

Recent Experience

• Taught University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Global Professional LL.M. course on Privacy & Data Governance (Fall 2022, with Samara Starkman)

• Principal author, CMHA Ontario PHIPA Toolkit

• Principal author (with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly), of two Law Commission of Ontario research papers on advance care planning and health care consent

• Principal author, The Change Foundation, report on caregiver barriers due to privacy and health care consent

 

Insights & Recognition

• Best Lawyers in Canada: Recognized by her peers in Health Care Law (2014-2024), Privacy and Data Security Law (2024)

• Named to RE-WORK’s top 20 Women in AI for the US (Health and Pharma), October, 2022

• Top 4 Toronto Health Lawyers (Post Toronto, 2021, 2022)

• Co-author, Canada: Cybersecurity Comparative Guide  (2020)

• Founding author, Risk Management in Canadian Health Care, Canadian Health Law Practice Manual 

• Ontario Bar Association Susan Hillary Davidson Award: Excellence in Health Law (2017)

• Osgoode Professional Development: Recognized for excellence in continuing legal education 

 

Affiliations

• Canadian Bar Association, Health Law Section (Member)

• Internet Society (Canada)

 

Community involvement

• Past Chair, Alzheimer Society of Toronto

• Deputy Chair, Canadian Blood Services Research Ethics Board

• Advisory Committee member, Data Governance Committee member, T-CAIREM (Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Education and Medicine, University of Toronto)

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