Wickwire Holm is pleased to announce that Emma Marie MacIntosh has won the  Zöe Odei Young Lawyers’ Award

Heartfelt congratulations to our Associate Emma Marie MacIntosh for being this year’s recipient of the Zöe Odei Young Lawyers’ Award! The Canadian Bar Association’s Nova Scotia branch grants this award each year to a young lawyer for exceptional service to the community, the legal profession and the CBA. Emma was granted the award based on her service to local organizations, her commitment to gender equity and human rights, and her active involvement with the CBA starting in law school when she served as the Vice Chair and then Chair of the Law Student Section, before joining as Vice-Chair of the Young Lawyers Section. More recently, Emma has served as a member of the CBA Sexual Harassment Work Group, helping to implement bystander intervention training to better address and prevent sexual harassment in the legal profession.

We are thrilled that Emma has received professional recognition for her accomplishments and charitable work, including her internship with The Hate and Hostility Research Group when she conducted transnational, interdisciplinary research on hostility towards difference to progress policy and legislative changes in Ireland. This project was funded by the European Union, and Emma’s research led to her presentations for The Victim Services Europe Conference in Dublin, Ireland (May 2017) and The International Network of Hate Studies Biennial Conference (May 2018), and a co-authored article: “What is Measured Matters: The Value of Third Party Hate Crime Monitoring,” published in The European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research (November 2018).

In addition to her extraordinary service to the CBA and her international work on hate crimes, Emma has worked with the Halifax Refugee Clinic since she was an undergraduate student, when she wrote her honours thesis on the impact of the law and policy on refugee claimants in the Maritime Provinces. In her final year of law school, Emma worked as a research assistant for Dr. Evie Tastoglou and conducted a review of international conventions, regulations and key interpretive guidelines about legal and settlement services for refugee claimants. This project focused on the intersection of refugee / asylum seeker rights, women’s rights and gender-based violence that still motivates Emma’s work in the community. Even more, Emma serves on the Board of Directors for the Dartmouth Heritage Museum Society and volunteers with the Banook Canoe Club to support the canoe/kayak community.

We are fortunate that Emma is a member of our firm and offer sincere congratulations on her well-deserved honour. We know that it is just the beginning of her extraordinary career!