Susanne Goodman

The Honourable Susanne Goodman was called to the Bar in Toronto, Ontario in 1982. She was appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2000, sitting in Newmarket until 2004 and in Toronto from mid-2004 until 2021. From 1982 until her appointment, she practiced family law exclusively as a partner with the law firm of Epstein, Cole, Barristers, in Toronto.  At the time of her appointment, she was the Head of the Family Law Section of the Bar Admission Course for the Law Society of Upper Canada (now, Ontario).   As of June, 2025, Ms. Goodman will be working as a private mediator of family law disputes in Ontario. Until her retirement, Ms. Goodman was the Editor and principal author of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s Electronic Bench Book in Family Law, which is relied on extensively by the judiciary across Canada.  She teaches Advanced Family Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and has taught Financial Issues (property law in the family law context) in York University’s Osgoode Hall LLM Programme in Family Law.  Since her retirement, she has continued to speak and lecture at various legal institutions and associations.   Between 2001 and 2004, Ms. Goodman was the Local Administrative Judge at Newmarket.  In 2005, she received the President’s Award from the Women’s Law Association of Ontario, for her contributions to the legal profession as a teacher and mentor. Justice Goodman also served as a member of the Family Law Rules Committee from 2003 to 2013.