Susan Manwaring, national lead of the Social Impact Group with Miller Thomson in Toronto, is the 2021 recipient of the CBA’s Jane Burke-Robertson Award of Excellence in Charity and Not-For-Profit Law.
A national leader in the charities bar and a tireless volunteer, Susan Manwaring is “a role model across Canada for how to build a sustainable practice in service to charities and non-profit organizations,” say Margaret H. Mason of Norton Rose Fulbright and Terrance S. Carter of Carters Professional Corporation, in support of her nomination. “She is not only knowledgeable and highly capable but someone who conducts herself with integrity.”
Manwaring was called to the bar in 1985. In her role as partner with Miller Thomson she provides general counsel and specialized advice to clients in Canada and abroad. She has appeared before Senate committees on the charitable sector and national finance. In addition, she was appointed as part of the External Advisory Committee for the Partnership for Gender Equality and was named to the federal panel examining charities’ political activities.
“She is undisputedly one of the national leaders in the charities bar and has volunteered hours of her time in service of the Canadian Bar Association (National Chair of the Charities Section on at least two occasions and a member of the executive for many years, as well as the Ontario Bar Association Charities Section where she is a past winner of the John Hodgson Award for her exceptional contribution), the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (she is a ‘Friend of’ CAGP), former member on multiple occasions of the CRA Charities Directorate’s Technical Issues Working Group, and a current appointee to the government of Canada’s Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector,” write Mason and Carter.
The Jane Burke-Robertson Award is named after the first chair of the CBA’s Charities and Not-For-Profit Law Section in 2000 and founding co-chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Charity and Not-For-Profit Law Section in 1994. The award was established in 2014 to recognize, honour and celebrate a lawyer who has made an exceptional contribution and/or achievement in the development of charity and not-for-profit law in Canada.