Biography
Dan's legal experience includes appearing before administrative tribunals and handling a wide range of matters related to health law, with a focus on mental health and forensic psychiatry. He is a senior lawyer member of the Consent and Capacity Board in Ontario. Mr. Ambrosini was previously in-house legal counsel for a forensic psychiatry program, where he appeared before the Ontario Review Board in more than 350 cases, and he was a research lawyer with the Law Commission of Ontario. He has worked with criminal defence firms in Québec and Ontario, writing appellate-level factums for all levels of court, including Quebec courts, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and the Supreme Court of Canada. He has served as an expert in mental health law cases involving mental capacity and advised other law firms and lawyers on such matters.
Mr. Ambrosini holds a BA in psychology, LLB/BCL in common and civil law, MSc in psychiatry, and a PhD in psychiatry from McGill University. His doctoral dissertation explored clinical, ethical and legal aspects of psychiatric advance directives and the role of autonomy for individuals with mental illness. While in law school he was founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the McGill Journal of Law and Health and clerked for a criminal court judge in Québec. He completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Law School, where he studied the legal profession, executive education, and law firm management for senior partners.
Mr. Ambrosini is an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster University. He has been a lecturer at the DeGroote School of Business in ethics and health law, the DeGroote Medical School for first-year medical students, has been a lecturer in social work and law at McGill, and lectured at Harvard University. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports in mental health law. As a legal and scientific member of a research ethics board, he reviews research studies involving medical devices and clinical trials in pharmaceutical law.