People Mentioned
Partner, Disputes, Toronto
Osler has been recognized in Canadian Lawyer magazine’s 5-Star Pro Bono Firms 2024 report which evaluates the contributions of lawyers donating their time to help community organizations.
“Sharing Osler’s data about our pro bono work through Canadian Lawyer’s report helps us to be more transparent about our Firm’s deep commitment to the causes and organizations our lawyers support with their time,” says Mary Paterson, partner in the Litigation group and a member of Osler’s Community Law Committee. “Through our Community Law program, we are proud to uphold the long-held tradition at Osler of giving back to our communities through advisory and advocacy work.”
The second annual edition of Canadian Lawyer’s report of 5-Star Pro Bono Firms recognizes Canadian law firms that demonstrate pro bono infrastructure at an institutional level. The assessment criteria include evidence of pro bono infrastructure (e.g., pro bono committee, ability to quantify partner participation, etc.), count of pro bono time as billable time/towards targets (for large/national firms only), cost awards/charitable giving to A2J organizations and a minimum five hours per lawyer pro bono time.
Working with Pro Bono Ontario, Canadian Lawyer evaluated all nominated firms examining how each firm had made a meaningful contribution to the industry — along with benchmarking against the other entries — to determine the 20 5-Star Pro Bono Firms.
In 2023, Osler lawyers contributed to pro bono work in the following ways:
- 10,750 total hours
- 180 active Community Law matters
- 20 hours per lawyer were donated by the firm (including students)
- >70% of lawyers (including students) undertook more than 10 hours of pro bono work
We are proud to be associated with the many enterprises, both public and private, that do important work in the field every day, such as:
- 226 hours at Access Pro Bono of British Columbia
- 105 hours for the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary
- 2,883 hours for Pro Bono Ontario
- 224 hours for Kids Help Phone
- 69 hours for the Centre d’appui aux communautés immigrantes
- 53 hours for the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program
You can read the full report on Canadian Lawyer magazine.
People Mentioned
Partner, Disputes, Toronto
