Steve Shamie, Law’86, managing partner at Hicks Morley, has a discussion with Queen’s Law students about working in a management-side labour and employment law firm.
Steve Shamie, Law’86, managing partner at Hicks Morley, has a discussion with Queen’s Law students about working in a management-side labour and employment law firm.

Queen’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace (CLCW), the first of its kind in Canada, has reached another milestone. The generosity of alumni, friends, law firms and other organizations has pushed donations over the top of the school’s goal of $1 million for the CLCW. Among this year’s targeted contributions were gifts of $50,000 each from Lancaster House and Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP.  

“The CLCW is the trailblazer in revitalizing labour and employment law in law schools across the country,” says Jeffrey Sack, QC, founder of Jeffrey Sack Law, President of Lancaster House Publishing, and also CLCW co-chair with Hugh Christie, Law’81. “We need to arrest the decline of labour law as an academic discipline and build faculty strength as a foundation for high quality scholarship and the training of future generations of practitioners.” 

Under the leadership of Professor Kevin Banks since its launch in 2010, the CLCW has hosted conferences and workshops bringing together leading academics, practitioners and policy analysts from across Canada to discuss pressing issues in labour and employment law – from pensions and privacy to landmark Supreme Court rulings. This past year was no exception. The October 2015 symposium, dedicated to the late Professor Bernie Adell, asked, “Has Weber v. Ontario Hydro Transformed Collective Agreement Administration and Arbitration in Canada?” “Frontiers of Human Rights in Canadian Workplaces” was the timely subject of this September’s conference. 

“Hicks Morley is most pleased to support the Centre in advancing its vision to be a leading force for innovation in law, policy and dialogue in the contemporary workplace,” says Stephen Shamie, Law’86, the firm’s managing partner and CLCW Advisory Committee member. “With the rapid emergence of new technology and legislation, the need to effectively educate the next generation of leading workplace law practitioners, teachers and scholars is more important than ever.”

Gifts to the Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace can be made online.