Grants Approved

The Board of Governors of the Law Foundation of B.C. met on November 19, 2005. Chair Heather Raven is pleased to announce funding totalling $1,150,000 has been approved for the following one-time projects:

Public interest Articling Fellowships
$150,000, B.C. Civil Liberties Association
$100,000, UVIC Law Centre
$50,000, Community Legal Assistance Society

Poverty Law Services
$100,000, B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre
$100,000, Community Legal Assistance Society
$100,000, Legal Services Society

Judicial Review Disbursement Funds
$100,000, Pro Bono Law BC

Law Student Awards
$300,000, University of British Columbia
$150,000, University of Victoria

Please visit the Law Foundation website for a complete listing of grants approved, at www.lawfoundationbc.org.

Warren Wilson, QC Elected Chair of The Law Foundation
The Board of Governors is pleased to announce that Warren Wilson, QC of Vancouver has been elected as Chair of the Law Foundation for a two-year term beginning January 1, 2006. Mr. Wilson succeeds Heather Raven of Victoria who has been Chair of the Law Foundation since 2004.

Mr. Wilson was called to the Bar in 1968 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1993. Mr. Wilson is a retired partner with the Vancouver firm of Borden Ladner Gervais where he had a corporate commercial practice. He served on the National and Provincial Councils of the Canadian Bar Association for six years, and chaired the CBA National Member Services Committee 1990-1991. Mr. Wilson was a Bencher of the Law Society of B.C. from 1991–1999 and was President of the Law Society in 1999. Mr. Wilson was the recipient of the Georges A. Goyer, QC Memorial Award in 2004 for exceptional contributions to the legal profession.

The Bank of Nova Scotia
Law Foundation Chair, Warren Wilson, QC commends the Bank of Nova Scotia for its commitment to paying a competitive rate of return on lawyers’ pooled trust accounts. Recognizing the overall impact of protracted low interest rates on the Law Foundation’s revenues, a new interest rate agreement was recently concluded.

As of November 1, 2005, a new interest rate agreement on the lawyers’ pooled trust accounts has been signed that will pay a net rate of return in the range of prime less 2.80%. Thanks go to Mike Pugh, Director, Global Transaction Banking, and MaryAnne Galey, Manager, Global Transaction Banking, for the leadership shown in making this new agreement possible.

Increased revenues enable the Law Foundation to fund programs that make the justice system accessible to British Columbians, particularly those people who have the greatest access problems as a result of their economic, social, physical or mental special needs. The funded programs include professional legal education, public legal education, law reform, legal research, legal aid and law libraries.

The Canadian Bar Association (B.C. Branch), the Law Foundation, and the Law Society encourage lawyers to consider which financial institutions provide the best support to the Law Foundation when deciding where to place their trust accounts.

This article was published in the February 2006 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2006, all rights reserved.