Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/688578
40 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | JUNE 2016 dent of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers (CABL). Elected to CABL's first board in 1997, Arleen has been instrumen- tal in defining and building CABL. Since 2008, she has served as director of mem- bership, vice-president and president from 2013 to 2015. She has worked for equity and diversity in the legal profession and introduced strategies to overcome the bar- riers experienced by racialized lawyers. As Chair of CABL's Advocacy Committee since 2008, she has draed numerous sub- missions to LSUC: advocating voluntary self-identification in gathering statistics to better understand demographic trends in the profession; responding to LSUC's Ar- ticling Task Force Consultation Report; and urging investigation of access and ad- vancement within legal organizations and supporting strategies for change. Arleen has also been a leader in the very public lob- by for a transparent, accountable and rep- resentative federal judicial appointments process and the appointment of qualified, racialized candidates. Indigenous Blacks & Mi'kmaq (IB&M) Initiative SCHULICH SCHOOL OF LAW > HALIFAX e Indigenous Blacks and Mi'kmaq (IB&M) Initiative is the result of efforts by African Nova Scotian communities and Mi'kmaq First Nations to obtain access to legal education and the legal profession and to address racism in the justice system. ese efforts led to Dalhousie University's study entitled "Breaking Barriers: Report of the Task Force on Access for Black and Native People." ese efforts coincided with the work of the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall, Jr., Prosecution, which recommended that the IB&M Ini- tiative "receive the financial support of the Governments of Canada and Nova Scotia, and the Nova Scotia Bar." rough the hard work and persistence of the Advisory Board, community members, directors, students, faculty and staff, the IB&M Ini- tiative grew to become a model for access to legal education and the legal profession. Jamil Jivani TORONTO Jamil Jivani grew up in Greater Toronto, earned a law degree from Yale Law School and served as President of Yale's Black Law Students Association. Jamil now teaches Community Organizing and the Law as a visiting professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. In 2013, he founded the Policing Literacy Initiative, which highlights pro- gressive voices in community policing. He has written on police-community relations and the hot-button issue of carding. In 2014 he co-produced a documentary entitled Crisis of Distrust: Police and Community in Toronto. He has also advocated publicly for mediated solutions to police-community issues through the Office of the Indepen- dent Police Review Director. He is a co- founder of Teachers Beyond Classrooms, which helps unemployed teachers apply their skills to non-school employment op- portunities in Greater Toronto, and a Di- verseCity Fellow of the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance. Scott Jolliffe GOWLING WLG (CANADA) LLP > TORONTO Scott Jolliffe initiated and led Gowling WLG's diversity and inclusion initiative, ensuring that it became an essential part of the firm's culture. As Chair and CEO in 2015, some of Scott's achievements in advancing diversity and inclusion involved greater diversity in senior management positions: four out of seven Canadian of- fice managing partners are women; the national executive committee includes a female firm managing partner; 27 per cent of partners are women, exceeding the Ontario average; and better representation of gender and race diversity on the firm's board. Under Scott's leadership, Gowlings adopted a diversity and inclusion strategy in 2014. As part of the strategy, Gowlings conducted a firm-wide diversity and inclu- sion self-identification census providing direction for the future. e diversity and inclusion council also sponsored training courses on unconscious bias at all levels of the firm. Sandra Ka Hon Chu CANADIAN HIV/AIDS LEGAL NETWORK > TORONTO As Director of Research and Advocacy for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Sandra Ka Hon Chu works to advance the rights of sex-trade workers, drug users and prisoners. Sandra's work includes lead- ing litigation against the Government of Canada for failing to provide needle and syringe programs in prisons. She has writ- ten extensively in the area of HIV/AIDS, including a legislative reference work on women's rights in the context of HIV and briefing papers on the sex trade and HIV law in Canada and internationally. Before joining the Legal Network, she worked in e Hague with the Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, advocating for gender- inclusive justice before the International Criminal Court. She has worked for hu- man rights and United Nations agencies in Libya, Timor-Leste, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Law Firm Diversity and Inclusion Network (LFDIN) e LFDIN is a group of Canadian law | ZENITH AWARDS |