Canadian Lawyer

8 M A Y 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m V eteran Montreal litigation lawyer Gerry Apostolatos says women accounted for "maybe six per cent" of lawyers in Quebec when he started practising nearly 30 years ago. But he credits social change, the determination of women lawyers and a variety of actions by the Barreau du Québec with helping to close the gender gap, especially among young lawyers and the student bodies at all five of the province's law schools, where women now make up the majority. "These kinds of ethical issues go beyond law," says Apos- tolatos, a partner and board chairman at Langlois Lawyers, which in January announced five new partners for 2018 — all of them women. "They are about life and making things bet- ter." He sees the Panorama Project in much the same light. Spawned from the 2014 report from the Barreau du Québec on the Forum Project, the largest consultation exer- cise ever conducted by the provincial regulator among lawyers and students from racialized groups, the Panorama Project is a three-year action plan aimed at helping to increase the ethnocultural diversity of the legal profession in Quebec. Inaugurated in June 2016, the project involves 28 vol- untary participants, including 23 national and regional law firms (including BCF, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Langlois, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Stikeman Elliott LLP and Lav- ery de Billy) and the legal departments at five major Quebec companies (including SNC-Lavalin and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec). In all, the participants employ 2,300 Quebec lawyers. Participants pledged to do five things. They include carrying out surveys to identify and quantify their lawyers from ethno- cultural groups and the development and putting in place of best practices for the recruitment, retention and advancement of lawyers from those groups. They also agreed to measure the progress of their hiring practices, implement measures to promote the values of ethno- cultural diversity and inclusiveness and file annual reports on those initiatives. The results of the surveys and those actions will be made public this summer. One lawyer involved with the Panorama Project says the results will likely be "in line" with a finding in the Barreau's Forum Project that while 13 per cent of Quebec's population of nearly eight million people self-identify in one of 10 racialized groups, lawyers from those groups account for only six per cent of the province's nearly 27,000 lawyers (though students from those groups now represent nearly 20 per cent of law students in Quebec). Another finding in the Forum Project was that lawyers from racialized groups face unique challenges getting into the profes- sion, starting practice and advancing in the field. Other actions under Project Panorama are aimed at iden- tifying and breaking down cultural barriers. They include the development of a two-hour, for-credit training course on unconscious bias, a panel on diversity put on this winter by the law faculty and students at the Université de Montréal and the \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ P R A I R I E S \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP Barreau to release results of diversity initiatives PANORAMA WILL PROVIDE US WITH THE DATA WE WANT AND NEED IN ORDER TO BEGIN ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF DIVERSITY AS A PROFESSION. PAUL-MATTHIEU GRONDIN, Barreau du Québec C E N T R A L NST is proud to announce that as of January 1, 2018, Peter Senkpiel is our newest equity partner. We recruited Peter directly from his clerkship with then-B.C. Court of Appeal Chief Justice Lance Finch, foreseeing the exceptional calibre of trial lawyer, appellate counsel and advocate that he has become and that is essential in a practice as demanding as ours. Peter is a seasoned commercial litigator with extensive experience before all levels of court (including twice at the Supreme Court of Canada), the editor of the Civil Appeal Handbook, and an Adjunct Professor at the UBC School of Law. Peter perfectly complements some of the best senior counsel in Canada and a second generation of stars. One of Canada's top litigation boutiques, NST has assembled a team of exceptional lawyers at every level to manage the largest and most complicated commercial disputes, resolving them to advantage – or litigating them to conclusion. Small, strong teams require a single high standard www.nst.bc.ca ntitled-4 1 2018-04-23 9:20 AM

• Cover