A pioneering woman lawyer, a young administrative law scholar and a certified specialist in immigration law have something new in common. These Queen’s Law alumni are all winners of 2019 Canadian Bar Association (CBA) awards.
Daphne Dumont, CM, QC, Law’79, is this year’s recipient of the Cecilia I. Johnstone Award for achieving professional excellence and inspiring others to do the same. A partner with MacNutt and Dumont in her native Charlottetown, she is known as one of the pioneering women lawyers in Prince Edward Island. For the CBA, she was the PEI branch’s first female president and became the organization’s national president, serving from 2000 until 2001. As a member of the CBA Gender Equality Task Force, which released its “Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity and Accountability” report in 1993, she examined discrimination against women and minorities in the legal profession. Last October, she helped commemorate the 25th anniversary of “Touchstones Report,” by speaking at an event co-organized by the CBA’s Women Lawyers Forum and the Ontario Bar Association.
One of Dumont’s nominators wrote to the CBA: “Daphne Dumont has devoted her entire legal career, which now stands at over 40 years, promoting equality, promoting and supporting the advancement of women in law and in society, promoting access to justice and often doing so without appropriate financial recompense.”
Read the CBA’s interview with Daphne Dumont, who will receive her award on October 19 during the CBA’s Leadership Conference for Professional Women.
Giancarlo Mignardi, Law’19, has earned the Paul Smith Memorial Award for submitting the best scholarly paper on a Canadian administrative law topic. Mignardi, an articling student with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP in Toronto, beat other Canadian JD and articling students and young lawyers in the essay competition. His winning paper, “Select Issues with Curial Deference on the Basis of Administrative Expertise: A Behavioural Approach To Canadian Administrative Law’s ‘Prodigal Child’,” is what he calls a “blended Law and Economics–Administrative Law piece.” Writing the paper for Professor Cherie Metcalf’s seminar, he was also inspired by many topics he learned in Professor Jacob Weinrib’s course.
“I chose this topic because, over the course of the last two years, I have become increasingly fascinated by behavioural psychology and economics: what it is able to reveal about the cognitive biases we all possess, and how to become better aware of them and their impact in a variety of societal situations,” he says. “These topics, moreover, greatly impact legal and policy decision-making, once again, in a variety of situations, but especially in the administrative law sphere, where we currently possess a standard of review that rests on the central notion that courts are to grant deference to administrative decision-makers because they are experts within their fields. Exploring these topics, to say the very least, helped me to better assess the strengths and weaknesses of relying upon such a notion.”
Michael Battista Law’90, has garnered the CBA Immigration Law Section’s Volunteer Recognition Award for his significant contributions to the section. Battista, who is a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Refugee Law by the Law Society of Ontario, is as a partner and co-founder of the Battista Smith Migration Law Group in Toronto.
His volunteer work with CBA Immigration Law Section began in 2015 when he was asked to assume the new role of Litigation Coordinator. “I advised the section on matters involving litigation on immigration matters before immigration tribunals and the Federal Court,” he says. “Also in this capacity, I launched and continue to chair a Federal Court access to justice committee called the Subcommittee for Assistance to Unrepresented Litigants. This fall we hope to launch the Federal Court’s first active program to support litigants without counsel.”
By Lisa Graham