Monica M. Bokenfohr

Professional Practice

Prior to joining the firm in October 2019, Monica spent 9 years as in-house Legal Counsel with Alberta Health Services, where she gained extensive experience with a wide range of labour and employment matters. Within this heavily unionized environment, she advised regularly on collective agreement interpretation and administration, discipline, terminations, accommodations, grievance handling, policy development and best practices for employee management. She has represented management before arbitration boards and in mediation on a variety of diverse matters, including interest arbitration for a province-wide collective agreement, and has conducted judicial reviews before the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.

Monica has significant experience acting for management defending human rights complaints and in managing and negotiating wrongful dismissal demands.

Monica’s work at AHS also provided a broad exposure to matters before the Labour Relations Board including unfair labour practice complaints, successor and common employer applications, cease and desist applications in the context of illegal strikes, as well as appearances before the Essential Services Commissioner on legislative interpretive issues.

Monica was the lead for advising on and managing all labour and employment legal issues involved in a large-scale transition of services and employees, from providing strategic advice at the conceptual stage, to representing the employer before the Labour Board upon completion.

Prior to her role as legal counsel, Monica worked as a Labour Relations Officer with AHS’ predecessor, Capital Health, where she was responsible for advising on a number of different collective agreement administration matters, acted as nominee on arbitration boards, conducted sensitive investigations, and represented management’s interests on joint employer-union committees.

Prior to working in health care, Monica was an Associate Lawyer at a medium-sized law firm and maintained a general litigation practice.

Monica takes pride in ensuring she understands her clients’ goals and needs. She enables them to make the best decisions for their organization by providing clear and efficient advice with a practical approach, and provides effective preparation so the client knows what to expect from the legal process.

 

Memberships

  • Law Society of Alberta
  • Canadian Association of Counsel for Employers
  • Employment Law Alliance (ELA)

Contact Information

P: 
780-733-6553‬

F: 
‭780-488-0026‬

mbokenfohr@ntlaw.ca