Shantona Chaudhury

Shantona is a founding partner at Pape Chaudhury LLP, and has an active litigation practice in both private and public law. She acts for both individual and institutional clients and has experience in a wide variety of matters, including commercial litigation, class actions, torts, professional discipline, professional negligence, administrative, constitutional, national security law, and public inquiries.

Shantona has considerable expertise in appellate litigation, having acted in over 40 appeals at the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Divisional Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. She also appears regularly before trial courts and administrative tribunals.

In 2025, Shantona received the Honsberger Award from the Toronto Lawyers Association, and in 2023 she received the Laidlaw Medal from The Advocates Society, both in recognition of outstanding achievement.

From 2023-2025, Shantona served as Lead Counsel to the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Process and Democratic Institutions (the Hogue Commission). From 2022-2023, she was co-Lead Counsel to the Public Order Emergency Commission (the Rouleau Commission).

Shantona is ranked in Chambers Canada, Lexpert, Benchmark (Top 100 Women in Litigation) and Best Lawyers (2021 “Lawyer of the Year” in Appellate Practice). She is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.

Since 2021, Shantona has been the co-Executive Director of the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute, a national non-profit organization offering advocacy training to counsel appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. She is on the Board of Directors of The Advocates’ Society and co-founder of its Appellate Practice Group.

Prior to starting practice, she clerked for Justice Ian Binnie, trained as a Middle Temple Fox Scholar in London, interned at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, interned at the Parliament of Canada, and worked in the music industry.