LAO Lawyer Recognized Professor Ordered To Pay Costs Cavalluzzo Wins Labour Law Award Law Times Poll
Lynn Bradley, supervisory duty counsel for Legal Aid Ontario at L’Orignal Court, won the 2018 Champlain-East branch’s Earl Eaton Award of Distinction, the Canadian Mental Health Association said. The CMHA says it is awarded annually to a person for outstanding dedication in the field of mental health. As the only full-time duty LAO counsel in a large swath of territory between Quebec and Ottawa, Bradley is the first point of contact for cases ranging from family law to criminal matters.
Clients with mental health concerns tend to be over-detained, Bradley says.
She says every case is different, and it often takes the help of clients’ concerned family members to break the taboo around speaking to lawyers about mental health.
“We need to find the right sources for them not to come back and not to be incarcerated,” Bradley says. “I really do feel like I’m making a difference every day.”
Law professor Ryan Alford was ordered to pay almost $10,000 in costs to the Law Society of Ontario after a judge decided a case about the law society’s Statement of Principles should be transferred to Divisional Court.
At issue in the July 9 decision, Alford v. The Law Society of Upper Canada, 2018 ONSC 4269, was whether the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had jurisdiction over the dispute between Alford and the law society.
Alford, who teaches at Lakehead University, brought an application to the Superior Court to challenge the law society’s authority to require the creation of a Statement of Principles. Asher Honickman, partner at Matthews Abogado LLP, who represented Alford, says they have not decided whether to seek leave to appeal.
The University of Toronto said it will give Paul Cavalluzzo the Bora Laskin Award this year. The award honours “outstanding contributions to Canadian labour law.” Cavalluzzo, senior partner and co-founder at Cavalluzzo LLP in Toronto, serves on the board of the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights. The CFLR said he is known for representing unions, as well as the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada in Charter challenges over bans on farm unions. The award, which commenced in 2003, is the namesake of former Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Bora Laskin, who specialized in labour law and was the first Jewish justice to sit on the SCC.
Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP said it will remove names from applications for its firm’s summer positions. The Toronto law firm said the name-blind screening process is an effort to promote more diverse recruitment.
About 52 per cent of readers said they did not think the name-blind screening initiative would achieve the intended aim of promoting diversity in hiring. Forty-eight per cent of readers said they think it will improve diversity in the hiring process.
