Three of Canada’s top Asian-Canadian lawyers were honoured May 29 at the Marriott Hotel in Toronto.
More than 250 people attended the annual awards ceremony, hosted by the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL).
Chris Hope of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, who is featured in Precedent‘s Summer 2013 Secret Life, won the FACL Young Lawyer of the Year Award.
The FACL Lawyer of Distinction Award went to Daniel Mark, the legal advisor to the Deputy Attorney General, and the FACL Lifetime Achievement Award went to Jeffrey Lem, a partner at Miller Thomson LLP.
The event’s organizers also offered special congratulatory remarks to Justice Steve Coroza, the first Filipino-Canadian to be appointed to a Superior Court in Canada.
“What we have as lawyers is this unusual ability to hit way above our weight class in terms of affecting the way the world works,” said Lem. “I challenge everyone to do something charitable and philanthropic.”
The event also included a silent auction, a three-course meal and a speech from Vincent Lam, a physician who wrote the award-winning book Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures.
“As hyphenated Canadians…we have to really understand the strengths that our histories can give us,” said Lam in an interview after his speech. “Someone can be clearly and obviously of ethnic decent and be right at the mainstream of Canadian culture and there’s no incompatibility. That’s a very exciting concept.”
Photo: Chris Hope and Justice Manjusha Pawagi at FACL Gala 2013