charities and not-for-profit
Our Group
Our lawyers have depth and breadth of expertise and experience in all aspects of charities and not-for-profit law, an awareness of the public policy dimensions of client problems, a commitment to collaborating on fresh ideas, and a multidisciplinary approach to handling complex retainers effectively.
Our Clients
We act for a wide variety of public and private charities and not-for-profit organizations, ranging from some of the largest charities in Canada to smaller organizations, including academic institutions, churches, hospitals and their related foundations, social service and cultural organizations, community foundations, private foundations, professional and trade associations and golf and recreational associations.
Our Services
We provide legal services and advice to our clients to meet all of their needs. These include:
Corporate/Commercial Matters
- incorporation and organization
- corporate governance
- directors' and officers' duties and liabilities
- continuance under new corporate legislation
- fundamental changes, such as mergers and windups
- donor agreements, sponsorship agreements and joint venture agreements
- procurement, outsourcing and insourcing arrangements regulatory and compliance matters
Charities Matters
- obtaining charitable status
- maintaining charitable status
- fundraising and charitable gaming
- foreign operations
- political activities
- business activities
- trust law and investment restrictions
- interpretation of wills
- administration of charitable bequests
- mediation and litigation of contested donations
- planned giving
Other General Matters
- environmental
- Competition Act and trade law
- intellectual property
- technology matters, such as website agreements, software agreements, domain name disputes
- labour and employment law
- litigation
- mediation with members
- privacy
- real property law
- risk management
Giving Back
Our firm is committed to giving back.
Many of our lawyers act as volunteer directors and committee members in various community and charitable organizations.
Several of our group members are active in the Ontario Bar Association's Charity and Not-for-Profit Law subsection.
We have a Pro Bono Program for which we won three Zenith Pro Bono Awards in 2010. For details, please see here.
Representative Transactions/Cases
- Merger of Ontario and federal registered charities.
- Advising large professional associations on transitioning under new Ontario NFP legislation.
- Advising large international associations on scope of permitted activities under federal Special Act.
- Advised major public foundation in connection with investment pooling arrangement to enable smaller charities to pool investment funds with public foundation to lower investment costs for all participants.
Publications / Presentations
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