Michel Drapeau Law Office
Military and Veterans Lawyers
Class Action Advocacy
Solutions-driven strategic legal advice for members of the defence community since 2002.
Ottawa, Ontario
Tel: (613) 236-2657
Email: info@mdlo.ca
Members of the defence community have the right to consult independent legal counsel on all matters of administration and career progression.
MDLO has proudly represented members of the military and veterans’ community, from coast-to-coast, since 2002 and specialize in drafting grievances, assisting through the harassment resolution process, and drafting representations for members facing release.
MDLO also provides representation and litigation support through judicial review of administrative decisions including Final Authority grievance decisions, entitlement under the Veterans Well-Being Act, negotiated settlements, and court martial defence work.
MDLO has acted for clients through military Boards of Inquiry, Coroner’s Inquests, Public Fatality Inquiries and complaints before many administrative tribunals such as the Military Police Complaints Commission, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Welcome
Our Team
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Michel served for 34 years in the Regular Force with the Canadian Armed Forces, retiring at the rank of colonel as the Executive Secretary for the Department of National Defence. Michel established MDLO in 2002 and since that time, the Firm has assisted thousands of serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces, military families, police officers and veterans, in dealing with various matters including administrative conflicts, release from service, complaints, and litigation.
Michel W. Drapeau
Founder and Senior Counsel
Joshua has been a member of the MDLO team since 2011, and currently acts as Managing Partner. He is an experienced litigator focusing on military law, administrative law and human rights law. Joshua has appeared before the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, at Courts Martial and before many administrative tribunals, namely the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Military Police Complaints Commission.
Joshua Juneau
Senior Counsel
** The MDLO Team also includes consultants within the military and veterans’ community, administrators, legal professionals, affiliates, other special counsel, and charitable organizations.
Recent activities
MDLO authors Access to Information and Privacy Law Annotated, published by Thompson Reuters and in its 23rd year of publication.
Manuge v. Canada, 2024, FC 68: This Class Action lawsuit recovered $817M in damages for injured veterans due to an indexing error made to their pensions since 2003.
Machoun v. Canada (Attorney General), 2022, FC 1604: This Judicial Review was granted, finding that “the VAC Appeal Decision was unreasonable in failing to consider Ms. Machoun’s medical evidence against the rehabilitation objectives of the legislation.”
R v. Banting J.C. (Lieutenant), 2020 CMAC 2; 2019 CMAC 5; 2019 CM 2008; 2019 CM 2009: This was a five (5) day trial where charges were dismissed at the conclusion of the Crown case for failure to demonstrate a prima facie case. The Crown appeal was similarly dismissed, and the appeal court awarded party-and-party costs in our favour.
Toth v. R, 2019 FC 125: This Class Action lawsuit recovered $100M in Charter damages in favour of approximately 15,000 disabled Canadian Forces veterans.
Bill C-77 (Mar 2019): MDLO appeared as witnesses before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence in support Bill C-77 which abolished military summary trials; and enshrined rights for victims of crime.
Contact us
To schedule a consultation, please contact us by using the online form below. All initial consultations are done virtually.