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.