Ontario in-house lawyers recognized for pro bono work

Canadian Lawyer
by Jennifer Brown
April 17, 2017

Some in-house counsel were recently recognized for pro bono projects geared toward helping communities in need of access to legal services in the Greater Toronto Area.

Lawyers from George Weston Ltd. and the Pro Bono Ontario’s ID Clinic for the Homeless won the Community Builder Award recognizing pro bono, community or corporate social responsibility efforts at the recent Canadian Corporate Counsel Association annual conference in Toronto.

Two winners were chosen for this year’s Canadian Corporate Counsel Association Community Builder Award. Conference co-chair Fernando Garcia said they demonstrate the different ways both corporations and individual in-house counsel can give back to their communities.

The first of the two co-winners are the legal departments of George Weston Ltd. — PC Financial, Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart.

“These teams have combined their efforts to bring free legal services to families in the Greater Toronto Area who do not have the resources to address their unmet legal needs,” said Garcia.

“We believe that the Weston subsidiaries’ ground-breaking program is a model that can and should be emulated by legal departments across the country.”