Employment Law Advice

It is always a pleasure and an honour to collaborate with Rika. Rika brings a wealth of knowledge to her training sessions, including up-to-date case law, employment legislation, gender-based harassment and violence, and workplace practices and realities. Rika is a dynamic facilitator, educator, and speaker that is always participant-focused, responsive, and highly effective. In her training sessions, Rika creates safe learning environments that are interactive, engaging, and grounded in adult learning principles. Rika has a unique way of making participants feel at ease with such difficult and complex issues, such as gender-based harassment and violence, and willing to open up to ask questions and share experiences.

I had the pleasure of collaborating with Rika Sawatsky of Clausework on a Black Femme Legal guide developed for Black queer, trans, and non-binary workers in Ontario. Rika was an absolute pleasure to work with—thoughtful, brilliant, and deeply grounded in a trauma-informed and intersectional approach to legal analysis. Her care for community and commitment to accessible, meaningful work truly shines through.

Rika provided our public sector organization with expert representation on a number of complex legal matters, which led to highly successful outcomes. She provides intelligent insightful counsel and she has an unparalleled work ethic. Rika is able to pull on her wealth of knowledge and legal expertise while quickly comprehending the nuances of issues that are essential to problem solving. Rika is results driven and articulate in communications. From a client perspective, Rika is highly responsive and she demonstrates true caring.

Rika is a passionate and highly knowledgeable employment lawyer, particularly in the area of workplace harm. Her attention to detail, professionalism and expertise have been evident throughout our collaboration on developing public legal education and information resources.

Rika learned and applied the complex industrial terms and working procedures of our North American company incredibly quickly, all the while managing tight litigation timelines and multiple points of contact within our organization. Her personable nature and ability to explain legal concepts in plain language made her a joy to work with.

Mennonite New Life Centre's Staff and Clients learned much from the teachings and guidance offered and would recommend to anyone. Rika is friendly and knowledgeable. Really knows her business.

Rika is an excellent lawyer who pays attention to detail, has terrific writing skills, and is a wonderful person to work with. I highly recommend her for labour and employment matters.

Rika is an excellent lawyer. She learns the complicated details of a case and finds creative solutions by building rapport with allied and opposing parties to come to a positive resolution for her clients.

Rika Sawatsky is smart and comes with impressive experience. At the same time, she is very respectful of the expertise of others. Rika is a natural collaborator and working with her helped me to see my own work from new perspectives. It’s the best kind of work experience.

I had the pleasure of working closely with Rika during her time with the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, where she drafted legislation, and provided oral and written advice to clients and senior officials. Rika is an incredibly smart and adaptive lawyer that excels in working with her clients to find creative solutions by using analytical approaches. Personally, it was a pleasure to work with Rika and I could not recommend her more highly!

Rika is a pleasure to work with! Her high level of organization and prompt communication is impressive, and her kindness proves she truly cares for her clients. I now feel confident about my client contract! Highly recommend!