Wei William Tao 陶维
Principal Canadian Immigration Lawyer @Heron Law Offices
Signup · Get unlimited contacts
WORK HISTORY
Principal Canadian Immigration Lawyer @Heron Law Offices
Burnaby, BC, CA
Canadian immigration, refugee, citizenship, and broader administrative law practice focused on complex litigation and solicitor files. I work in the intersections of immigration inadmissibility, technology, public policy, and systems reform.I also provide expert immigration legal opinions for family, criminal, civil, and other intersecting legal matters, as well as for employees’ unions.Representative presentations have been delivered for McGill University, York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies, Queen’s University, UBC, UOttawa, Cornell University, CILA, CBA (national and BC branches), CAPIC, LPEN, CLEBC, CBIE, BCCIE, AMSSA, MOSAIC, RISE, Immigration Seminars, and Ashton College on topics spanning AI/ADM, international students, refugee studies, and Canadian immigration practice.
EDUCATION
The University of British Columbia
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), International Relations and History
University of Ottawa
Doctor of Law (J.D.), Law
Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC
Master of Laws - LLM, Law
Southwest University of Political Science and Law
International Exchange Student, International Law
SKILLS
ABOUT WEI WILLIAM TAO 陶维
Will Tao is a Canadian Immigration, Refugee Citizenship, Public and Administrative Lawyer interested in the intersection between law, policy, and research. He co-founded Heron Law Offices in 2021 to provide legal services in all areas of Canadian immigration and refugee law with a particular focus on complex refusals, appeals, and judicial reviews of international student, family class, and foreign worker-related applications. He won the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) Immigration Section Founders\' Award for his accomplishments in his first five-year of practice (2020) and won the CBA Immigration\'s Volunteer Recognition Award (co-winner) for his work with the Section\'s Anti-Racism Committee (2021). Will provides strategic advice and consultation to government (including Canada\'s Parliamentary Committee on Citizenship and Immigration), media, educational institutions, and businesses on immigration-refugee, decolonization, and race/inclusion-related issues. Will taught Immigration Law at UBC CILPP and has guest lectured at several law schools in Canada including UBC, UOttawa and UCalgary.Will just recently completed his LLM at Allard/UBC exploring the foundations of the automated administrative state in Canada, utilizing Canadian immigration law as a case study. In his spare time, Will runs and operates his law blog Vancouver Immigration Blog (http://vancouverimmigrationblog.com/), which won a Clawbie for Best Law and Commentary Blog in Canada in 2019 and Hall of Fame in 2023. Will can often be found commenting in local media and writing opinion pieces on immigration policy, race equity, and diversity topics. He is the co-founder of a monitor/civil society organizations advocating for the responsible use of AI in Canadian Immigration and Internationally (AIMICI).Will previously sat on the Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group, the Punjabi Market Revitalization Collaborative, and was on the board of the hua Foundation and Roundtable Society (charity). Will is the Former Chair of the City of Vancouver\'s Cultural Communities Advisory Committee and a past member of the Mayor\'s Working Group on Immigration and City of Vancouver\'s Historical Discrimination Against People of Chinese Descent Committee. Will also served as a Committee Member on the Canadian Bar Association British Columbia\'s Equality and Diversity Committee.Will is a graduate of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (J.D.), the University of British Columbia (B.A, History and International Relations).Of all the above, Will is most proud of being a father to his two daughters.
This profile is compiled from publicly available professional sources. Unifers is not affiliated with or endorsed by LinkedIn. Request removal of this profile.