Each year, the Canadian Bar Association – Nova Scotia Branch recognizes individuals, organizations and Sections whose work strengthens the legal profession and the communities it serves. The 2025–26 Branch Award recipients demonstrate the many forms that service can take: removing barriers to justice, embedding culture and community in legal institutions, contributing decades of leadership beyond the courtroom, mentoring and teaching the next generation, and creating spaces where members of the profession can learn from one another.
This year’s recipients show that strengthening Nova Scotia’s justice community is a collective endeavour. CBA-NS is pleased to celebrate their achievements and contributions.
Excellence in Equity and Diversity Award
Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services of Nova Scotia
The Excellence in Equity and Diversity Award recognizes leadership in advancing equity, diversity and inclusion within the legal profession. This year’s recipient, Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services of Nova Scotia (MFCS), demonstrates what it can mean to make culture, language and community part of the everyday life of a legal workplace.
MFCS’s Legal Department is known as Nuji wskw’muet wjit Mijua’ji’jk, loosely translated in its nomination as “speaking in defense of the children.” Its approach extends well beyond legal representation. Mi’kmaw traditions and practices—including talking circles, healing ceremonies, drumming, smudging and language teachings—are incorporated throughout the organization. MFCS encourages employees to use Mi’kmaw in the workplace and has developed policies intended to respect the cultural life of the communities it serves.
That commitment is also reflected in MFCS’s approach to child protection. Its Wikimanej Kikmanaq Family Group Conferencing program is rooted in Indigenous traditions in which the care of children and decision-making for families are understood as responsibilities shared by extended family and community. The model seeks to return decision-making power to families, empowering them to take responsibility for their children while ensuring plans remain focused on children’s best interests.
Through culturally grounded leadership, training, workplace practices and community engagement, MFCS offers a powerful example of equity and inclusion as something embedded in how an organization works—not simply a principle it endorses.
J. Michael MacDonald Access to Justice Award
Association des juristes d’expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse (AJEFNÉ)
This year’s J. Michael MacDonald Access to Justice Award recognizes the Association des juristes d’expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse (AJEFNÉ) for its work addressing the intersecting barriers that can make access to justice especially difficult for members of Nova Scotia’s French-speaking minority.
At the centre of that work is AJEFNÉ’s Socio-Legal Support Program (ASJ), described in its nomination as the only model of its kind in Atlantic Canada. Rather than treating a legal problem in isolation, the program responds to legal, social, cultural, linguistic and trauma-related barriers through specialized intake, socio-legal assessments, individualized intervention plans, legal navigation and coaching, interdisciplinary coordination and longer-term follow-up.
The reach of that work is substantial. In 2024–25, AJEFNÉ’s Access Justice Centre supported 811 people and produced 41 standardized bilingual legal information sheets. The organization has also worked to address systemic barriers, including the absence of French-language divorce proceedings in Nova Scotia, the recruitment and appointment of bilingual judges, improvements to French-language court services and bilingual modernization of the Societies Act.
AJEFNÉ’s work demonstrates that meaningful access to justice is about more than getting through the courthouse door. It also requires people to be able to understand, navigate and participate in the justice system in their own language and with appropriate support.
Community Service Award
Victor J. Goldberg, KC
For 46 years, Victor J. Goldberg, KC has combined the practice of law with an extensive record of community service and leadership.
Among the contributions highlighted in his nomination is his role as counsel in the landmark racial-profiling case involving former Olympic and professional boxer Kirk Johnson and the Halifax Regional Police. Following the case, a scholarship was established in Johnson’s name for students from North Preston. At the time of Goldberg’s nomination, the scholarship had supported 16 recipients since 2003.
Goldberg’s community involvement extends far beyond the courtroom. He has held leadership roles within Atlantic and national Jewish organizations and served numerous charitable and philanthropic organizations. His work with the QEII Foundation has included serving as its President and leading its Cancer Never Waits fundraising campaign.
The Community Service Award recognizes not simply professional accomplishment, but the contribution lawyers make when they carry their skills, leadership and commitment beyond their legal practices. Goldberg’s decades of service exemplify that tradition.
Zöe Odei Young Lawyers’ Award
Cydney Kane
The Zöe Odei Young Lawyers’ Award recognizes an outstanding young lawyer who demonstrates professional excellence, leadership and commitment to the legal profession and broader community. This year’s recipient, Cydney Kane, has built an impressive record of service alongside her developing legal career.
Kane is a solicitor with the Government of Nova Scotia and a part-time faculty member at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law. She also serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, where her leadership has included strategic planning, organizational governance and fundraising.
Her commitment to access to justice began well before her call to the bar. As a law student, Kane volunteered with the Elizabeth Fry Society and wrote about the often-overlooked consequences of criminal records and the barriers people face in obtaining record suspensions. That commitment has continued through her involvement in initiatives supporting people who are incarcerated and criminalized and through her work helping to create opportunities for the next generation of lawyers to engage in this field.
Kane was nominated for the award by Emma Arnold, Staff Lawyer with PATH Legal, and endorsed by PATH Legal Executive Director Emma Halpern. Her combination of legal practice, teaching, community leadership and sustained commitment to access to justice reflects the spirit of the Zöe Odei Young Lawyers’ Award.
Section Award of Excellence
Criminal Justice Section
The 2025–26 Section Award of Excellence goes to the CBA-NS Criminal Justice Section, recognizing a year of renewed activity and community-building under Chair Patrick Young and Vice Chair Erica Koresawa.
After a period of reduced Section activity during and following the pandemic, Young and Koresawa have worked to rebuild regular programming and connections among criminal law practitioners across the province. Their efforts have included well-attended virtual professional development sessions, an in-person social and preparations for a full-day conference, alongside their work on the Criminal Litigation Symposium planning committee.
Perhaps most importantly, the revitalized Section provides a neutral meeting place for Crown counsel, defence counsel and members of the judiciary—professionals who frequently encounter one another on opposite sides of highly adversarial proceedings. The nomination emphasizes the value of creating opportunities for practitioners to connect and learn from one another outside the courtroom, strengthening both the criminal bar and the administration of justice.
The Section’s renewal is a reminder that professional community does not happen automatically. It is built through the time, energy and willingness of members to create opportunities for their colleagues to come together.
President’s Distinguished Service Award
Associate Chief Justice R. Lester Jesudason, Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (Family Division)
The President’s Distinguished Service Award was presented to Associate Chief Justice R. Lester Jesudason of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (Family Division) at the Bench & Bar event in June. The award recognizes his outstanding contributions to CBA-NS and, in particular, his longstanding support of the Family Law Section.
Associate Chief Justice Jesudason has been a dedicated champion of opportunities to strengthen connections between the Bench and Bar. Early in his tenure as Associate Chief Justice, he worked with the Family Law Section executive to identify topics of interest to practitioners and enlisted his judicial colleagues to participate in professional development programming. That collaboration grew into a regular series of Family Law Section dinners featuring presentations from members of the Supreme Court (Family Division), often alongside members of the Bar.
Through this work, he has helped foster collegiality within the family law community, strengthen relationships between practitioners and the judiciary, and support the ongoing improvement of family law practice and outcomes for families across Nova Scotia. His support of CBA-NS also extends beyond the Family Law Section, with his regular participation in events and programming across the Branch.
Building a Stronger Justice Community
Taken together, this year’s recipients demonstrate the many ways members of the legal community contribute to a stronger justice system in Nova Scotia.
That work happens in courtrooms, but it also happens far beyond them. It happens when an organization builds Mi’kmaw language, traditions and approaches to family decision-making into its everyday work. It happens when legal services are redesigned to respond to linguistic, social and cultural barriers. It happens when lawyers devote decades to charitable and civic leadership, when young lawyers combine practice with teaching and community service, and when colleagues create spaces where members of an adversarial profession can meet, learn and build relationships.
CBA-NS congratulates Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services of Nova Scotia; the Association des juristes d’expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse; Victor J. Goldberg, KC; Cydney Kane; the Criminal Justice Section; and Associate Chief Justice R. Lester Jesudason on their 2025–26 Branch Awards.
Their contributions remind us that a strong legal profession is measured not only by the work its members do, but by the communities and institutions they help to build.
