Iris Fischer

Iris Fischer is a Litigation partner at Blakes in Toronto. She is the co-Practice Group Leader of the Toronto Litigation & Dispute Resolution group and leads the Blakes Media & Defamation practice. Her practice includes complex commercial litigation, internal and government investigations and white-collar matters, constitutional and other public and administrative law cases, and competition and regulatory matters.

Iris has deep expertise in the areas of media, defamation, privacy, public law, and access-to-information issues. As one of Canada’s leading experts in these areas, Iris frequently leads cases for major Canadian media organizations on freedom of expression and court openness matters. Among other things, she acted for the media in unsealing records in the Bruce McArthur prosecution, and recently represented the Toronto Star and Kevin Donovan in the Supreme Court case of Sherman Estate v. Donovan, resulting in the unsealing the Barry and Honey Sherman estate files for public view. Iris was also co-counsel on the watershed case of Grant v. Torstar, establishing a new defamation defence of responsible communication in the public interest.

Iris sits on numerous boards and advisory committees, including being a member of the Investigative Journalism Bureau’s Editorial Advisory Committee.