Peter Ralph, KC – Lead Commission Counsel

Peter Ralph has been practicing law for over 30 years. He graduated from Dalhousie with a LLB and from Memorial University with a BA. He is currently practicing with the firm of Sullivan, Breen. Mr. Ralph has had a varied practice over his career including working in the fields of criminal, family, child protection, civil litigation, and public inquiries. He was a former director on the board of the Canadian Mental Health Commission and he was instrumental in the establishment of the mental health court and the family violence court in Provincial Court in St. John’s.

 

Caitlin Urquhart – Co-Counsel

Caitlin Urquhart is an activist and lawyer, striving for decolonization and equity for women and marginalized communities. She regularly volunteers for free legal clinics, is the Chair of the Board of the St. John’s Status of Women Council and Co-Chair of the First Voice Working Group on Police Oversight. Her legal practice has been primarily in the area of family law, with a special interest in child protection in Indigenous communities. She represented grassroots community groups in the Muskrat Falls Inquiry and prior to her appointment as junior commission counsel, was a staff lawyer with Ecojustice, Canada’s largest environmental law charity. She obtained her law degree from Dalhousie University and was called to the bar in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2015.

Lynn Moore – Co-Counsel

Lynn Moore is a founding partner of Morris Martin Moore and works in the area of sexual abuse litigation – she sues institutions and governments on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse. Before entering private practice, she spent twenty years as a Crown Attorney and civil litigator who kept survivors and victims of crime in the forefront of her mind. She has conducted hundreds of trials and is one of the most experienced trial lawyers in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2013, Lynn decided to leave the civil service so that she could represent survivors of sexual abuse, working to get financial compensation for them.

She practices law in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nunavut. She has succeeded in getting money for survivors of sexual abuse who were sent to Whitbourne and Pleansantville in the 1970’s and 80’s in a class action. She is also representing a group of Inuit survivors who were abused by a teacher in Nunavut in another class action. She also represents many people who were sexually assaulted while in foster care.

Lynn has been a vocal advocate for equality and for survivors of domestic violence. She has served on the Board of Directors with Iris Kirby House (a shelter for women fleeing violence) and with the St. John’s Status of Women. She has volunteered with the Safe Harbour Outreach Program (SHOP) – a program designed to make sex workers safer and more secure. In 2013, Lynn swam five kilometres in the North Atlantic from Portugal Cove to Bell Island to help raise awareness for the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Lynn graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1992 and completed her Bachelor of Arts in 1989. She is married and is mother and stepmother to five amazing individuals.