About Ann Soden, Ad. E.
Ann M. Soden, Ad. E.
Call to the Québec Bar in 1983.
Ann Soden holds Civil Law and Common Law degrees from McGill University (1981 and 1982).
Ann Soden, Ad. E. is an Elder Law lawyer and mediator. She is the Founding Chair of the National Elder Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), Past Chair of the Quebec Elder Law Section of the CBA, a founding Director of the Canadian and Quebec Networks for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, Canadian President of the World Jurist Association, Washington, D.C. and the first international Commissioner of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging, in Washington, D.C.
Ann heads the National Institute of Law, Policy and Aging/Institut National du droit, de la politique et du vieillissement, based in Montreal, a Canadian reference center for excellence in research, education and advocacy on issues of law, policy and aging.
In 2007 Ann opened the Clinique juridique des aînés / The Elder Law Clinic, a clinical course in Elder Law offered through the McGill Faculty of Law, which serves as a pro bono clinic for older adults and professionals in Québec, operating throughout the year, on legal issues of aging. The clinic provides access to justice to vulnerable older persons and representation of persons with impaired capacity, regardless of socioeconomic status, in the assertion of their rights and due process protections. In addition, Ann has taught courses on Law and Aging to Masters of Law students at the Université de Montréal (2010-2012).
Ann Soden is General Editor and the author of “Ethical Issues and Dilemmas in an Elder Law Practice,” in Advising the Older Client, the first national, comparative law text on law and aging in Canada, published in 2005 by Lexis Nexis Butterworths (Second Edition, 2015); co-author with Charmaine Spencer of Simon Fraser University of A Softly Greying Nation: Law, Ageing and Policy in Canada, International Journal of Law and Aging, Volume 2, AARP and Stetson University College of Law, 2007; author of “Beyond Incapacity” in Towards Autonomy: Exploring the Clinical, Legal and Ethical Aspects of Mental Capacity (2011) 5:2 MJLH 271; general editor with Dr. Israel Doron of Beyond Elder Law: New Directions in Law and Aging, Springer, Germany, 2012; author with Dr. Robert Gordon of Simon Fraser University of The Guardianship of Incapable Adults and Their Property in Canada, A. Kimberley Dayton, ed., Comparative Perspectives on Adult Guardianship (Carolina Academic Press, 2014); author of “État de la pratique juridique québécoise dans les situations d’exploitation financières” with Roxanne Leboeuf in l’Exploitation financière des personnes aînés: prévention, résolution et sanction, Raymonde Crête, Ivan Tchotourian et Marie Beaulieu, Co-editors, Edition Yvon Blais, 2014; and General Editor of one of the authors of Le droit des aînés, Lexis Nexis Québec, to be published in 2015.
As part of her commitment to community and public service Ann Soden has acted for more than nineteen years as a consultant to the Quebec Institute of Social Gerontology on issues of abuse and exploitation as part of an Elder Abuse Multisectorial Consultation Team (CSSS Cavendish) and is consultant to the Canadian Bar Association, the Barreau du Québec and to governments on legal issues of aging and legislative reform.
Ann is also the Co-Founder and current Past Chair of the provincial branch of the National Women Lawyers Forum, the Forum des femmes juristes du Québec.
In 2007 she was designated an avocate émerite (Ad.E.) by the Barreau du Québec for her contributions to the development of Elder Law in Canada and in Quebec.
Elder Law Canada & The National Institute of Law, Policy and Aging.
Please take a moment to read an overview of The Elder Law Clinic here.
National Institute of Law, Policy and Aging
The Elder Law Clinic
1200 avenue Atwater, bureau 6
Westmount, QC H3Z 1X4
E-mail : annsoden@sympatico.ca Visit Website
Lawyer Ann Soden shares some basic information about power of attorney laws in Quebec. During our conversation, she speaks to the following POA issues:
