Eight alumni of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School took home awards for distinguished contribution at Dean Patrick Monahan’s annual alumni reception on May 17 at historic Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto.
Marlys Edwardh (right) (LLB ’74), partner with Ruby & Edwardh in Toronto, received the inaugural Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice through Law. The medal honours the late Dianne Martin, an Osgoode professor and champion of justice in Canada, who died in Dec. 2004 at the age of 59. (Martin will be awarded posthumously on May 31 a “Toronto YWCA Woman of Distinction 2005, Special Award” for a life lived in defence of justice.)
Edwardh is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and received a masters degree in law from Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. She has practised in the fields of criminal, constitutional and administrative law, and she has also served as counsel in a number of royal commissions, the latest being the Krever Commission regarding the blood system in Canada.
In 2002, Edwardh received an honorary doctorate from the Law Society of Upper Canada and she was awarded the G. Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Award by the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. In 2004, the Women’s Law Association bestowed on Edwardh the President’s Award. She also received the Award of Distinction from the Toronto Lawyers’ Association in 2005.
Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant, who graduated from Osgoode in 1992, was the keynote speaker at the alumni tribute, which included presentation of the Osgoode Alumni Association’s 2005 Gold Key Awards to:
Robert Gemmell (right) (LLB/MBA ’83) is the president and chief executive officer of Citigroup Global Markets Canada Inc. based in Toronto. Prior to joining Citigroup, Gemmell was vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch Canada. He has led some of the most significant transactions in Canadian corporate history, including the $6.5-billion sale of Le Groupe Videotron to Quebecor Inc. As a result of his position as one of the leaders in the investment banking industry in Canada, and his success and achievements in developing the cross-border financing market for Canadian companies, Gemmell was honoured as one of Canada’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 1996.
Harvey M. Haber (left) (LLB ’60) is currently a senior partner at Goldman Sloan Nash & Haber LLP. During his career spanning over 42 years, he has been named one of Canada’s most frequently recommended property leasing lawyers by the Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory. Haber received his QC designation in 1978 and was the recipient of the Law Society Medal for Outstanding Service within the Legal Profession in 2002. He also received the Award for Distinguished Service in 2000 from the Ontario Bar Association. He has authored numerous books and has written, and continues to write, numerous articles for both Canadian and American manuals, journals and newsletters.
Haber serves as an executive member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the Ontario Bar Association. He has been a guest lecturer for the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Canadian and Ontario Bar Associations and the International Council of Shopping Centers. Haber is currently president of the Sir John A. Macdonald Foundation Inc.
Gary P. Mooney (left) (LLB ’80) is the president and chief executive officer of Fidelity National Financial and chief title agent for Chicago Title Insurance Company Canada. He is also a senior partner in the Toronto-based law firm Anderson Sinclair LLP. Mooney pioneered a process for mortgage document processing that changed the way lending institutions complete mortgage transactions.
He has been a Jesuit priest, an academic (with a PhD. from Cambridge University), a lawyer and now the Canadian CEO of a Fortune 276 company. He was a founding member of the Rotary Club of Credit Valley AM, the first Rotary Club in Canada to admit women and the first to have a woman president. He is also involved with several other community organizations including Peel Parents Against Drugs and Cheshire House, a home for the disabled.
Mooney was named the 2004 Business Person of the Year by the Mississauga Board of Trade and he was also a finalist for the 2003 Ernst and Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Catherine Beagan Flood (left) (LLB ’97) graduated as a Gold Medallist in 1997. She went on to clerk for Antonio Lamer, chief justice of Canada. Beagan Flood received an LLM degree from Harvard Law School, where she studied constitutional, administrative and media law as a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow and Canada-US Fulbright Scholar. She then joined the Toronto-based law firm, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, where she practises in the litigation group, specializing in litigating constitutional and administrative law cases.
Beagan Flood has argued before all levels of court, including the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. She has been counsel on numerous law cases dealing with issues such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the division of powers, parliamentary privilege, judicial independence, freedom of information and human rights. She has also prepared extensive legal opinions on issues such as compliance with privacy legislation, constitutional conventions, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the division of powers in the Canadian Constitution.
She is also a member of the adjunct faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School, where she has been teaching a specialized seminar on privacy and freedom of information since 2000.
Ernie Eves (left) (LLB ’70) was called to the Bar in 1972 and became a Queen’s counsel in 1983. Eves was a member of provincial parliament for nearly 24 years and served as Ontario’s 23rd premier from April 15, 2002, until Oct. 23, 2003. He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 1981 and was subsequently re-elected seven times. He also has served in numerous legislative capacities including: parliamentary assistant to the minister of education & minister of colleges & universities, provincial secretary for resource development, minister of skills development, Opposition whip, Opposition house leader, deputy premier, minister of finance, government house leader and leader of the official Opposition.
An active member of his community, Eves founded the Big Brothers Association of Parry Sound, is a former president of the Kinsmen Club of Parry Sound and is a recipient of the Kinsmen Club of Canada’s Outstanding President’s Award. Eves is a founder & honorary Chair of the Justin Eves Foundation. Established in his son’s memory, the foundation is a charitable non-profit organization granting scholarships and bursaries to learning-disabled and disadvantaged young people to assist them as they achieve their postsecondary education.
Madam Justice Sandra Chapnik (right) (LLB ’76) practised law in the areas of civil litigation, family and entertainment law from 1982 to 1986. She also acted as a rent review commissioner for the Ontario government. For four years prior to her appointment in 1991 to the now Superior Court of Justice, Chapnik was a vice-chair of the then Worker’s Compensation Appeals Tribunal as well as a fact finder and mediator for the Education Relations Commission in the Ministry of Education. Her professional position included being an executive member of the Canadian Bar Association, president of the Women’s Law Association, a Bar Admission Course instructor and a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Her involvement with Osgoode has included her position as president of the Osgoode Hall Law School Alumni Association from 2001 to 2004.
Chapnik has been the recipient of several honours and awards, including the award of distinction and the award for distinguished service from the Canadian Bar Association, the Women’s Law Association President’s Award and a Reuben Wells Leonard Scholarship from the University of Toronto.
As well, she and her husband have endowed a student bursary at Osgoode to assist mature students who demonstrate financial need.
Stephen McClyment (left) (LLB ’74) established his own law firm in Toronto and continued a very successful general practice both in Toronto and Markham until Sept. 2000 when he joined the Law Society of Upper Canada as investigation counsel. He is now the senior investigation counsel at the Law Society of Upper Canada and currently leads the mortgage fraud team at the law society.
An example of the continuing strength of the relationships between classmates, McClyment approached the law school after his friend Brian Little (LLB ’74) passed away in July of 2004, with the idea of raising money to create a student award in Little’s name. With the help and generosity of Osgoode alumni, friends and family, McClyment raised $50,000. The Brian Little Award is given annually to an Osgoode student who has good academic standing and financial need, and is involved in the life of the law school through extracurricular activities.