“When people and organizations have contributed to your personal development, I strongly believe that you need to give back,” says Greg Piasetzki, Law’80. His recent $250,000 gift, made with his wife, Laura, to the Queen’s Business Law Clinic (QBLC) will create more real-world learning opportunities for aspiring business lawyers.

“This most generous gift is a significant investment that will meaningfully enhance the work of the QBLC,” says Dean Colleen M. Flood. “It will increase opportunities for experiential learning, while also expanding community access to a valued legal resource for clients with limited resources across southeastern Ontario. I am deeply grateful to Greg and Laura for their generosity.”

Piasetzki is pleased to support the clinic’s expansion. The QBLC provides free legal services to qualified clients, composed of Kingston-area startups and not-for-profits. Its next phase of growth includes hiring a second review counsel to supervise and mentor students, as well as adding 12 student caseworkers and two group leaders — increasing caseload capacity by 30 per cent.

The impact for clients, “and for the relationship between Queen’s generally and the community,” he anticipates, will be overwhelmingly positive. “And students like dealing with real-world problems — it’s highly motivating and fun.”

He learned the value of experiential learning firsthand as a student in Queen’s Legal Aid. “When I was in law school, we’d take a van up north to Sharbot Lake and other communities, and I really enjoyed that — we dealt mainly with property disputes and minor criminal offences.” In those days, he recalls, Review Counsel Joe Dewhurst, LLB’66, was always there to mentor students and ensure clients’ interests were well represented.

“Working with real people was one of the most interesting parts of my time at law school,” Piasetzki says. “Even though it wasn’t the law I’d practise in the future — I’m a patent lawyer — I gained valuable experience in dealing with clients.”

Over his successful 40-year career practising with Piasetzki Nenniger Kvas LLP (PNK Law) in Toronto, Piasetzki has focused on intellectual property (IP) litigation involving patents, trademarks, and copyrights. For more than 35 years, he has also represented major league sports and individual teams in Copyright Board hearings related to the carriage of sports broadcasts on retransmitted radio and television signals, and to the use of recorded music at sporting events.

Alongside his busy legal practice, Piasetzki has also devoted time to the many communities he is connected to. “I have personal goals as a lawyer, but I also believe its important to contribute to your community,” he says, explaining that growing up “in a military family with five kids and a small salary” made service to others a fundamental value. “My father served overseas in two wars — the Second World War and the Korean War — what I do is nothing,” he insists.

Over the years, he has served as president of his federal riding association, as a scout leader, and, when his daughter played hockey, as president of the largest girls’ hockey league in Canada. At the Law Society of Ontario, he spent six years on the committee that certifies members as specialists in IP law. He has lectured on IP law in Canada, the United States, China, Brazil, and Ukraine, and taught Patent Law at Queen’s Law for three years.

Piasetzki also chaired his Law’80 class giving committee for many years. Under his leadership, the class established the Law’80 Visiting Lecturer in Business Law Fund in 2005 and has continued to contribute to it ever since — making Law’80 the top giving class at Queen’s Law. This endowed fund supports high-profile speakers in business and international business law, enriching the student experience and fostering academic excellence.

“I got involved in the giving committee mainly because I wanted a reason to get together with my classmates,” he says. “Out of that came the committee that organizes our class reunions, which has kept me linked to Queen’s.”

He encourages other alumni to support initiatives like the QBLC. “Aside from the benefits to current students and the community, there are so many good personal reasons,” he says with a smile. “These range from simple nostalgia and reconnecting with classmates, to seeing your own kids going to Queen’s, to getting a tax break.”

For him, though, the most powerful motivator is the satisfaction that giving brings. “Being a lawyer is intellectually stimulating,” he says, “but some of the greatest enjoyment I’ve had in my life was the result of getting involved and giving back to the communities that helped shape me.”

Contributions to the Queen’s Business Law Clinic can be made online.

By Kirsteen MacLeod