Chloe Lester
Mediation, Arbitration and Workplace Services
Our Services
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Chloe’s experience in various legal areas helps her design creative resolutions returning a high settlement success rate. She adapts the mediation process to be inclusive and trauma-informed to ensure progressive negotiations.
Above all, her ability to genuinely connect and earn individuals’ trust ensures client management during the mediation and that claims are settled fairly for all parties. Mediation services include:
Human Rights Disputes
Workplace Disputes
Personal Injury - Tort and AB
Long-term disability (LTD) benefit disputes
Workplace Restoration
Wrongful termination disputes
Estate and trustee disputes
Workplace harassment disputes
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Chloe has presided over 150+ hearings with a focus on delivering fair and timely decisions. She offers both in-person and electronic hearings options. Her approach emphasizes clarity and accessibility, with a point-first style of writing that simplifies complex legal issues. Her services are designed to meet your needs by offering:
Med/Arb
Expedited Arbitration
Formal Arbitration
Priority and Loss Transfer Arbitration
Labour Arbitration
Human Rights Disputes
Commercial and Invoice arbitration
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Chloe provides training & education in the following programs:
Conflict Resolution Training
Respect in the Workplace Training
1:1 Sensitivity Coaching
Human Rights and Harassment Training
Investigation Report Writing Training (Eligible for LSO CPD Hours)
Written Submissions Training for Tribunals (Eligible for LSO CPD Hours)
Guide to Oral Hearings (Eligible for LSO CPD Hours)
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We provide independent workplace investigation and workplace restoration services for employers, municipalities, professional associations, non-profits, and private organizations across Ontario. Our investigations are conducted with procedural fairness, neutrality, and a practical understanding of workplace dynamics. We gather and assess evidence, conduct interviews, make credibility findings where necessary, and deliver clear, objective reports supported by thorough analysis.
Workplace restoration services are designed to help organizations rebuild trust, improve communication, and restore healthy working relationships following conflict, complaints, investigations, or significant workplace disruptions. Through facilitated discussions, conflict resolution strategies, coaching, and tailored recommendations, we help organizations move forward in a productive and respectful manner.
Services include:
Workplace investigations
Harassment and discrimination complaints
Human rights matters
Workplace restoration and conflict resolution
Facilitated discussions and team interventions
Employee and management coaching
Policy review and recommendations
Training and prevention strategies
About Chloe
Chloe Lester is an Ontario-based arbitrator, mediator, workplace investigator, and workplace trainer with more than 17 years of experience resolving complex legal and workplace disputes. Her practice focuses on labour and employment matters, human rights disputes, workplace conflicts, commercial disagreements, personal injury claims, estate litigation and workplace investigations.
As a former Vice-Chair with the Licence Appeal Tribunal, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, and the Ontario Parole Board, Chloe brings extensive adjudicative and dispute-resolution experience to every file. She is known for delivering fair, practical, and efficient processes while ensuring parties have a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
Drawing on her background in adjudication, mediation, labour relations, and workplace investigations, Chloe helps parties identify key issues, assess risks, and resolve disputes through tailored, accessible, and cost-effective processes. She provides services throughout Ontario and Canada-wide for employers, unions, businesses, organizations, and individuals.
Having worked with organizations represented by unions including CUPE, UNIFOR, IAMAW, OPSEU, AMAPCEO, ETFO, and OSSTF, Chloe understands the practical realities facing employers, unions, managers, and employees alike.
Professional Experience
2023–Present: Arbitrator, Mediator, Workplace Investigator & Trainer
2016–2023: Vice-Chair, Licence Appeal Tribunal, Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, and Ontario Parole Board
2015: Mediator, Financial Services Commission of Ontario
2006–2015: Labour Relations Advisor, Air Canada and the Ontario Public Service
Speaking Engagements
Osgoode Accident Benefits Conference
Human Rights Training for Prospective Principals through OISE
Coach and Panelist, Osgoode/SOAR Certificate in Adjudication and Decision Writing
Coach, Hate Activity Within Schools Program for School Board Administrators
Middlesex Law Association Personal Injury Conference
FAQ
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I tailor each mediation to the parties involved by first asking which style of mediation best suits their needs. I use clear visual tools, including PowerPoint presentations, to simplify complex issues and facilitate productive discussions. Drawing on psychological and conflict resolution principles, I help parties reduce stress, improve communication, and make clear-headed, balanced decisions.
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I believe arbitration should be efficient, proportionate, and focused on the issues that matter most. I work with the parties to determine the most effective process for hearing the evidence and resolving the dispute. This may include written submissions, expedited, hybrid, virtual or in-person hearings. My goal is to avoid unnecessarily long and costly processes while ensuring the parties have a fair opportunity to be heard. Whenever possible, I endeavour to issue my decision within 45 days of the hearing's conclusion.
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Employment and workplace disputes
Labour and union disputes
Human rights matters
Contract and invoicing disputes
Commercial disputes
Estate and trust matters
Personal Injury disputes
Collective Bargaining mediation
Interest Arbitrations
Priority/Loss Transfer disputes
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We offer custom-tailored workshops and educational sessions for organizations of all sizes. Core training programs include:
Respect in the Workplace & Harassment Prevention
Conflict Resolution & De-escalation
Human Rights and Harassment
1:1 Sensitivity Coaching
Duty to Accommodate
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Every training program is customized to your workplace and includes scenarios that reflect the real situations your employees face. I teach through practical exercises and discussion rather than lengthy lectures, helping participants understand how the concepts apply in their daily work. Participants receive easy-to-follow guides, step-by-step tools, and clear, plain-language explanations of legal and workplace concepts.
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An external investigation may be appropriate where allegations involve harassment, discrimination, workplace violence, reprisal, conflicts of interest, senior leadership or other serious misconduct. Organizations may also retain an external investigator where internal resources lack the necessary independence or subject-matter expertise, or where the credibility and defensibility of the process may be closely scrutinized.
Contact Chloe