The Ontario Bar Association (OBA) held its annual Awards Gala at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Toronto.

The OBA’s Award for Distinguished Service went to Steven F. Rosenhek of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Dianne Saxe of Dianne Saxe Professional Corporation, and Jonathan Speigel of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP.

The OBA’s Linda Adlam Manning Award went to Audrey P. Ramsay of Withrow & Associates.

The OBA’s President’s Award went to Hon. R. Roy McMurtry, OC, O.Ont, Q.C., of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP.

The Hon. Chris Bentley, Attorney General presented the Mundell Medal for Legal Writing to Professor Brenda Cossman of the University of Toronto and William Kaplan, Barrister & Solicitor.

For more photos and information about the awards, see the OBA website:

The Parkdale-High Park Provincial Riding Association held a fundraiser at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP with a special guest, the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada.  The event was co-chaired by Alfred Apps and Elaine Flis.

The Canadian Bar Association‘s magazine, National, has an article in the December 2009 issue by Luigi Benetton on Canada’s Best Law Firm Websites.  A copy of the article can be found on Luigi’s website.

Law student and blogger Omar Ha-Redeye believes good bios are the exception today. He sees bios that vaunt lawyers instead of providing useful information to clients. “When looking for a lawyer, most clients could care less about the
things that lawyers care about, [like being a] Gold Medalist, or having clerked with so-and-so,” he says. “I would love to see social media linked from profiles (e.g., a lawyer’s blog), but this rarely if ever happens,” he adds.

The best sites listed in various categories were:

Ogilvy Renault LLP, Hyndman Law, Neff Law Office, Bull, Houser & Tupper LLP, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP, Torys LLP, McInnes Cooper, Legault Joly Thiffault, Davis LLP,  Clark Wilson LLP, Hull & Hull LLP

Runners-up:

Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Clark Wilson LLP, Hicks Morley Hamilton Steward Storie LLP, McMillan LLP, Cox & Palmer, Bélanger Sauvé, Lavery, Torys LLP

Omar Ha-Redeye was also quoted for the multimedia award given to Hull & Hull LLP,

They’ve probably been doing it as long as anyone, and have fully integrated videos and podcasts into their practice. Experience with these formats has not only resulted in a highly polished product, but also content that is actually relevant to what they do.

See more on Slaw.

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) held their 2009 annual conference at UofT.

After a welcome by Jason Leung, the FACL President and Conference Co-Chair, Professor Anita Anand of UofT Law provided some opening remarks.

A judiciary panel chaired by Justice Maryka Omatsu, and consisted of The Honourable Justice Russell Juriansz of Court of Appeal of Ontario; the Honourable Justice Shaun Nakatsuru of the Ontario Court of Justice; and the Honourable Justice Manjusha Pawagi of the Ontario Court of Justice.  They addressed the subject of, “Is Justice (Colour) Blind?”  They addressed issues raised previously on Law is Cool, such as by Bertha Wilson’s paper Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?, and the study by Yahya and Stribopoulos, Does a Judge’s Party of Appointment or Gender Matter to Case Outcomes? An Empirical

The Keynote Address was delivered by the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, on residential schools.  A summary of the talk is found on Law is Cool and Slaw.

Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

The afternoon consisted of a series of workshops on legal updates, which included Visha Sukdeo, Roslyn Tsao, Kathy Laird, Professor Poonam Puri, Carolyn Chambers, Teresa Cheung, Ron Choudhury, Jason Leung, and Dee Rajpal.

A subsequent workshop focussed on Bay Street Initiatives on Diversity, chaired by Fred Gerra , featured
Tariq Remtulla of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, May Cheng of Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP, Kate Broer of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, André Bacchus of Heenan Blaikie LLP, and Kevin O’Brien of Stikeman Elliott
LLP.

A concurrent panel, chaired by Deanna Santos, looked at the experiences of sole practitioners Jacqueline An, Ramon Andal, Peggy Chooi and Amer Mushtaq.