May 10, 2023
Osler has been recognized in Canadian Lawyer magazine’s 5-Star Pro Bono Firms report which looks at work done to help organizations in the community through the donation of lawyer time.
“This report recognizes the work of our Community Law Program at Osler as well as providing a snapshot of the firm’s ongoing commitment to providing and participating in pro bono legal services by so many of our lawyers across our communities,” says Mary Paterson, partner, Litigation, and a member of Osler’s Community Law Committee.
This is the first edition of Canadian Lawyer’s report on 5-Star Pro Bono Firms. In Ontario alone, the top pro bono firms helped Pro Bono Ontario serve 34,000 clients. Canadian Lawyer’s 5-Star Pro Bono Firms special report recognizes Canada’s law firms that demonstrate pro bono infrastructure at an institutional level. The assessment criteria are 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 minimum five hours per lawyer pro bono time.
The Pro Bono Ontario and CL teams reviewed all nominations, 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.
Osler’s commitment to giving back goes back to the early days of the firm. Today, many of our partners, associates and staff are personally involved in efforts well beyond advisory and advocacy roles, serving on boards, actively promoting causes, contributing to fundraising efforts and much more.
In 2022, Osler lawyers contributed to pro bono work in the following ways:
- 12,000 total hours
- 186 active Community Law matters
- 20.1 hours per lawyer were donated by the firm (including students)
- 51.8% 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:
- 106 hours at Access Pro Bono of British Columbia
- 214 hours for the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary
- 1,632 hours for Pro Bono Law Ontario
- 124 hours at the Centre d’appui aux communautés immigrantes
- 277 hours for the Refugee Sponsorship Training Program
You can read the full report on Canadian Lawyer magazine.