Dean's Council Vice-Chair honoured for pro bono leadership

Photo by Eya Donald Greenland

Peter H. Griffin, Law '77, First Vice-President of The Advocates' Society, presents the Pro Bono Volunteer Award to Greg Richards, Law ’79, at the Society’s End of Term Dinner.

Greg Richards, Law '79, a partner at WeirFoulds LLP in Toronto and Vice-Chair of the Dean's Council at Queen's Law, has been awarded The Advocates' Society Pro Bono Volunteer Award. The award recognizes his outstanding service for the past decade as Chair of the Society's pro bono projects.

Peter H. Griffin, First Vice-President of The Advocates' Society, says, "Greg has worked tirelessly and effectively in support of our Society's pro bono projects, for which we are extremely grateful."

Richards has been instrumental in overseeing pro bono work involving everything from safeguarding the public education rights of low-income children and youth in the Child Advocacy Project to advice for personal litigants at Law Help Centres. He says, "Cases where a volunteer lawyer takes his or her time on a pro bono basis to assist some low- income child or youth to try to get them educational services to which they are entitled are so important."

Of winning the award, Richards says, "It means a lot, and I was very honoured to receive it. However, I really believe I was accepting it on behalf of all those who've made pro bono advocacy such a success. I was very gratified that the work of all those volunteer lawyers caught the attention of the Society."

He noted that it was during his time at Queen's Law, working with both Kingston and Rural Legal Aid, that he encountered people's needs first-hand. "Everyone from students having difficulty with their landlords to low-income people came to the Queen's Law student legal aid offices, and we got a sense of the vast need out there."

As well, he says the "collegial atmosphere" there instilled a desire to help others that he has carried with him through the years. "The professors were very accessible and they were prepared to work with students," he recalls. "That atmosphere was contagious and it made students want to be involved in projects like legal aid. You become imbued with that kind of attitude."