2025 Year in Review: Measuring Success by Impact

As we reflect on 2025, we are grateful for a year that brought meaningful achievements for our clients and our firm. While our team celebrated important successes in court, those victories are not what made us most proud as a team.

This year, Black & Associates was honoured to be recognized by Canadian Lawyer as one of Canada’s 5-Star Pro Bono Firms. That recognition reflects work that sits at the heart of who we are and why we practice law.

In 2025, our pro bono advocacy took us to the Supreme Court of Canada to advance issues of profound public importance: seeking meaningful legal redress for victims of intimate partner violence, defending reproductive autonomy, and safeguarding the Court’s jurisdiction to decide Charter disputes even where the notwithstanding clause has been invoked. These cases, two of which will be argued this Spring, were not simply legal arguments.  They were about ensuring that the justice system remains accessible, principled and responsive to those whose rights are most at risk.

We also marked the fifth year of the Ottawa Pro Bono Employment Law Clinic, which we are proud to run alongside Daniel Tucker Smith, Kelli Day, an extraordinary team of volunteers and dedicated law students.  The clinic continues to meet a critical need in our community by providing free employment and human rights legal services to individuals who could not otherwise afford representation. Every clinic file is a reminder that access to justice begins long before a courtroom and often makes the greatest difference outside of one.  If “equality before the law” is to remain more than an aspiration, justice must be equal not only in theory, but in substance and availability, regardless of economic status.

Many of us came to this profession because we believe that rights mean little if they can only be enforced by those who can afford to do so.  Access to courtrooms is only the tip of the iceberg.  True access to justice includes understanding your rights and being able to assert them without having to choose between legal help and basic necessities.  For too many Canadians, that remains out of reach.  Lowering these barriers requires collective effort and then some. As Frederick Douglass warned, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails… neither persons nor property will be safe.” That truth continues to guide our work.

As we reflect on our advocacy in 2025, we are reminded that pro bono work is not an add-on to legal practice; it is part of our professional duty.  Lawyers do more than represent individual clients; we serve the courts and the justice system itself.  The cases that we worked on as a team at Black & Associates reflect our core commitments to justice, equity and maximizing the positive impact we can have.

As we look ahead to 2026, we remain committed to using our skills, our time and our platform to help ensure that the justice system works not just for those with resources, but for everyone it is meant to serve.

By Katie Black