Gowling WLG's pro bono program expands access to justice across Canada and beyond

This article was produced in partnership with Gowling WLG

Growing up in a small Ontario town, the only lawyers Suzie Lanthier knew were the ones on Law & Order: SVU. An avid fan, Lanthier decided she’d become a lawyer when she grew up — a Crown prosecutor working with victims of sexual assault. But during law school, Lanthier pivoted to civil and commercial litigation.

Upon joining Gowling WLG in Montreal, Lanthier leaned into the firm’s well-established pro bono program to pursue her early career goals alongside her litigation practice. Her pro bono work has made a difference, including helping to lift a publication ban of an abuse victim’s name in criminal court so she could tell her story publicly. Lanthier also counsels non-profit organizations in amending bylaws and policies and reviewing contracts. 

“Through pro bono work, we can help people assert their rights when they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. It serves as a social safety net,” explains Lanthier, now a partner at the firm. “As lawyers, sharing our knowledge of the law is one important way we can, and should, give back to our communities.”

A longstanding pro bono history

Gowling WLG has a longstanding history of pro bono work and supporting access to justice. Its legal professionals have long received full credit akin to billable hours for firm-approved files. Boasting a broad policy that’s easy to follow, and a tight-knit group of decision makers across the country, the program is both robust and nimble, says Erin Farrell, partner in the firm’s Toronto office and national chair of its pro bono program. Doing this purpose-driven work underscores the firm’s people-first culture and has always been part of its fabric.

“At Gowling WLG, pro bono work isn’t new, but it’s not something we’ve typically bragged about,” adds Farrell. “We’re realizing our pro bono work is not only helpful to the communities it benefits, but also helps our people support initiatives that are deeply meaningful to them. They’re able to make a real impact.”

, who practises in the firm's advocacy department, has worked on pro bono matters since her earliest days at the firm, along with many of her colleagues. A big push of hers since taking over as chair is simply raising awareness within the firm about the longstanding support the program offers.

After connecting with her pro bono counterpart at Gowling WLG in the UK, Farrell says they quickly realized pro bono was part of their shared global culture — one they could build on to do even more impactful pro bono work in Canada, the UK and around the world.

Aim for 15: a global opportunity

Enter Gowling WLG’s “Aim for 15” campaign, which encourages all of the firm’s professionals to aim for a minimum of 15 hours of pro bono work per year, though that is in no way a target or a cap. On occasion, lawyers exceed a hundred hours for large, important mandates, Farrell notes, but the goal is to “move that dial from zero to some hours for those who don’t have the pro bono bug yet.”

While it’s still early days — the initiative launched at the end of last year — everybody is involved in scoping out opportunities to help artists, marginalized communities, environmental charities, and a wide range of nonprofits. Pro bono hours are already trending upwards. But Farrell warns that the true reach of a pro bono program isn’t measured by total number of hours.

In Farrell’s view, a better measure of success is how many people are taking part in the program, how many more files are being opened, and how innovative people are being. The campaign offers unique opportunities to connect and collaborate with colleagues, clients, and alumni. For example, banking lawyers in the firm’s Hamilton office recently partnered with a client to do lending work for charities, an M&A lawyer in Toronto is supporting an acquisition to help with housing for artists,a tax lawyer in Waterloo is helping a charity navigate the new tax compliance rules so they can better serve marginalized populations, and a litigator in Ottawa is intervening in a high profile copyright case. “We’re seeing some really creative and unique endeavours,” Farrell says. “It’s embedding pro bono more deeply in our culture and reaching even more deserving communities.”

Driving real change

Chris Hummel, a Toronto-based associate at Gowling WLG, is a litigator and a long-time supporter of Fair Change Community Services, a lawyer-supervised and student-run pro bono legal clinic that helps street-involved individuals defend against provincial offence charges. With Hummel as pro bono co-counsel, the clinic challenged the constitutionality of Ontario’s Safe Streets Act and, in a recent landmark decision, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down some of the most harmful provisions of the highly criticized anti-panhandling law. Hummel calls the ruling “a meaningful victory.”

“This decision provides important protections to an extremely vulnerable population who, without organizations like Fair Change, would have no legal representation,” he says.

Lanthier is hoping to secure a similarly impactful ruling through her most recent pro bono file. She’s representing Juripop — an organization that provides affordable legal services to people who don’t qualify for legal aid, yet don’t have the means to hire a lawyer. It also provides training for lawyers, judges, and police on how to interact with marginalized populations and forego harmful stereotypes. Lanthier is representing Juripop in its intervention before the Court of Appeal in A.B. v. Miller & al.

A.B., a victim of sexual abuse, sued her alleged abuser and collaborators for damages but had her claim dismissed by the Superior Court of Quebec because she left a meeting with the money offered to her. Though she didn’t sign the proposed settlement agreement, the argument is that she implicitly consented to the offer. 

“The Court of Appeal has allowed Juripop to intervene as a friend of the court in order to speak to the need for the courts to take into consideration the trauma experienced by survivors, and the nature of the relationship between victim and abuser, when determining if a victim validly and clearly renounced their rights,” Lanthier says.

Promoting learning and collaboration

Pro bono work can involve “stretch assignments,” Farrell notes, meaning some files require the lawyer to either practice in an area that's not their typical practice, or in a forum that's unusual, and this opens avenues of communication between departments and across offices.

“What was really cool to see was when Suzie came forward with this potential intervention, Gowling WLG lawyers across the country who had previously intervened in various matters of public concern stepped up to offer advice. We expect that support between our lawyers will continue to grow.”

Lanthier’s efforts in Montreal and Hummel’s in Toronto are bolstered by colleagues’ similar endeavours. From the Vancouver office, which does a lot of pro bono work for Indigenous communities, and the Calgary office, which helped in the aftermath of the Jasper wildfires, to international initiatives in the UK, Germany, and beyond, Gowling WLG’s pro bono efforts transcend jurisdictions and practice areas — a scope that can only be achieved by a firm that’s been pulling together for over a century, Farrell says.

“Giving back to our community matters” she adds. “I love the idea of everybody following their own passion through pro bono, but it’s all going towards the same cultural piece that makes Gowling WLG the unique, people-first firm that it is.”