2017 Zenith Award Winners

Jacqueline De Gagné has become a role model to women, entering patent law and science when this was still uncommon for women. Jacqueline combined her expertise and leadership skills to become responsible for Bayer’s law and patents, compliance, privacy, risk management and corporate governance functions. Her role involves leading teams of specialists across Canada on complex litigation, commercial legal matters, and governance issues. Among her many responsibilities, she advocates for market access to lifesaving drugs for disadvantaged patients. She spends much of her time mentoring colleagues and students at Bayer, as well as speaking at universities, on panels, and in meetings in her local community on the topics of women in IP and life sciences. She advocates for diversity of opinion, experience and background within her team. Jacqueline was recognized as a Corporate IP Star for Canada in 2016.

Antree Demakos has devoted her entire career to demystifying the law, directly helping millions of Canadians to obtain better access to justice. In 1993, Antree founded Pardons Canada to educate the public and assist the 12 per cent of Canadians facing employment obstacles due to past criminal records. She hired, trained and oversaw 35 employees, liaised with Canadian and American governments, successfully advocated for changes to policies that violated Charter rights, helped two million anonymous callers, cleared 250,000 criminal records, conducted 600 training sessions within the criminal justice industry and reduced the provincial recidivism rate for Pardons Canada applicants from 35 per cent to 0.03 per cent. Antree also founded Legal Line, providing free legal help to Canadians through a pre-recorded, 24-hour information telephone line, and legalline.ca. To date, Legal Line has answered 30 million inquiries.

After nearly eight years as a legal assistant, Jeevyn Dhaliwal demonstrated tenacity and motivation in pursuing a law degree at UBC. For four years, Jeevyn has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in Canada publication as an exceptional immigration practitioner. Despite working long hours and raising a family, she acts as a role model and mentor to young female and minority lawyers in both Vancouver and Thompson Rivers University in her hometown of Kamloops. In her 18 years as a lawyer, Jeevyn has demonstrated the highest level of professional integrity and been recognized by her election to the Vancouver Bar Association Board and the Canadian Bar Association BC Branch Provincial Council. Now an elected LSBC Bencher, in 2014, she was the first South Asian lawyer elected in Vancouver County.