Law’23 Student to Receive Provincial Award for Advancing Equality Rights — Queen’s Law News
Queen’s Law News, the official publication of Queen’s University Faculty of Law, reported on Ningjing (Natalie) Zhang receiving the Women’s Law Association of Ontario (WLAO) Aird & Berlis Equality Award in 2023 — a provincial recognition for a student whose work has meaningfully advanced equality in the legal profession.
What the Award Represents
The WLAO Aird & Berlis Equality Award is conferred by one of Ontario’s oldest women’s legal associations in partnership with a major Bay Street firm. It is given annually to a law student whose record demonstrates sustained, substantive commitment to equity work — not symbolic contributions, but advocacy that moves the needle.
The award is selective at the provincial level. Nominees are drawn from every law school in Ontario, and recipients are students whose advocacy record stands out in a year’s class across the province. Recognition by the WLAO places a student squarely within the community of Ontario lawyers working on gender equity — a community Ms. Zhang has continued contributing to since her call to the bar.
The Record Behind the Award
The Queen’s Law News feature traced Ms. Zhang’s advocacy record through her three years at Queen’s — leadership across student organizations, involvement in equity initiatives, and the direct client-facing work she took on even as a student. The Faculty of Law’s coverage made clear this was not a late-in-law-school pivot toward advocacy — it was a through-line.
A Marker of Direction
The Faculty framed the award as a marker of the direction Ms. Zhang’s legal career was already taking. In the years since — founding BridgePoint Law, building a refugee and immigration practice, taking on pro bono and complex advocacy work — that direction has proven consistent with what the WLAO recognition signalled.
