September 11-12, 2000
San Francisco, CA

Speaker Biographies

Philippa Lawson

Counsel
Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Canada

Philippa Lawson has been practising administrative law and consumer advocacy with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) in Ottawa since her call to the Ontario Bar in 1991. She has a Master's degree from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (1986) and a Law degree from Queen's University (1989).

Pippa has led consumer interventions in all major telecommunications proceedings before the Canadian regulator since 1990, and has actively participated in industry working groups to design rules and procedures for the implementation of local competition in Canada. Pippa has also acted for consumer groups in regulatory matters before the Ontario Energy Board, and has represented various public interest parties before the Federal and Supreme Courts of Canada on matters ranging from the abandonment of railway lines to voting rights. She is a member of the Standards Council of Canada's Consumer and Public Interest Committee, as well as the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Privacy, which developed CAN/CSA-Q830-96, The Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information. She was a member of the Canadian delegation to the 1998 OECD Ministerial on Electronic Commerce, as well as the 1999 OECD Forum on Ecommerce, and is actively involved in various public and private initiatives to improve consumer protection in the evolving marketplace.