Four judicial appointees, three of whom are women, have background in family and criminal law
Doug Downey, Ontario’s attorney general, has announced the appointments of Michelle Marie Clouston, Archana Arun Medhekar, Jesse M. Razaqpur, and Mary Meta Elizabeth Warren as judges of the Ontario Court of Justice as of Jan. 29.
Sharon Nicklas, chief justice of the Ontario Court of Justice, assigned the new appointees as follows:
A bulletin from the provincial government provided more information regarding the four new judges.
In Manitoba, Clouston commenced her legal career as an associate at Petersen King, a former law firm.
Upon joining Law North Law Corporation, she served as child protection agency counsel for Child and Family Services and Michif Child and Family Services in Thompson, Manitoba. As private and legal aid counsel, she acted for family law clients.
In 2018, Clouston became per diem counsel at the Fort Frances Crown Attorney’s Office within the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario.
She was senior legal counsel at Kenora-Rainy River Districts Child and Family Services before her May 2025 appointment as a justice of the peace in Kenora.
Clouston has been a member of the Organization of Counsel for Children’s Aid Societies.
She joined the Manitoba bar in 2012 and the Ontario bar in 2018. She graduated from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law.
As an associate at Satwant Singh Khosla Law Office, Medhekar practised family, corporate, and immigration law. She became a partner at the former MW Lawyers LLP in 2005.
In 2008, she launched her own firm. She has served as a family lawyer, a lawyer for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer (OCL), an OCL legal panel member, duty counsel, a mediator, and an arbitrator.
Medhekar was president of the Ontario Association of Family Mediation. She has taught at the University of Guelph-Humber and in the certificate in family mediation program at York University School of Continuing Studies.
She has volunteered with the United Nations’ working group of Mediators Beyond Borders International and with COSTI Immigrant Services, a community-based agency furnishing employment, educational, and social services to immigrant communities.
Medhekar is a member of the Ontario bar, admitted in 2004, and a family law specialist, certified by the Law Society of Ontario. She graduated from the Manikchand Pahade Law College in India and earned an LLM from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School.
At the start of his legal career, Razaqpur was a criminal defence lawyer often representing legal aid clients at Edward H. Royle & Associates LLP.
In 2015, he began his own criminal law practice in Toronto. In 2018, he became an agent for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), where he prosecuted numerous drug cases in Hamilton.
Razaqpur became one of three partners at MMLR Law Professional Corporation. Since 2023, he has served as contact counsel for the PPSC with that firm.
He has been a member of the Hamilton Law Association’s library committee and of the steering committee of the Indigenous Peoples’ Court at the Ontario Court of Justice, where he helped establish a specialty court in Hamilton.
Razaqpur joined the Ontario bar in 2010. He graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School.
At Carroll & Wallace Barristers, Warren worked as an articling student and later as a lawyer. Since 2018, she has worked as a partner at the former Stein & Warren Barristers, in association with Carroll & Wallace.
Her practice has included handling criminal matters, collaborating with family counsel for clients with related family law disputes, and representing complainants in sexual assault cases.
She has acted for Ontario police officers in Special Investigations Unit investigations and disciplinary matters. Her work has also covered numerous public inquiries and coroners’ inquests.
Since 2019, Warren has acted as per diem counsel for the Legal Services Board of Nunavut, also known as Nunavut Legal Aid. In that role, she frequently visited remote Arctic communities.
She has served as an adjunct professor, clinic director, and volunteer supervising lawyer with the Ticket Defence Program, a charitable organization working with the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law.
As a volunteer lawyer with the Ontario Justice Education Network, Warren has provided public legal education to youth, alongside prosecutors and police officers.
She joined the Ontario bar in 2014. She graduated from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law.
