Jeff Vinnick/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Arvay represented the family of Kay Carter in the legal challenge that culminated in a unanimous victory at the Supreme Court in 2015, and paved the way for medically assisted dying in Canada. Mr. Arvay died at 71, after a heart attack. Human-rights lawyer Paul Champ called him Canada’s greatest constitutional litigator.
Their fund is intended to help environmental, civil-liberties and other public-interest groups pay for articling positions and retain young lawyers, while also financing innovation to encourage better access to justice for all, said Josh Paterson, executive director of the Law Foundation of B.C. The law foundation will explore whether the fund can assist with the student debt of those who enter public-interest law careers.
“Many of her colleagues would start out wanting to do public-interest law and wouldn’t continue because they would end up in such debt they would go off to white-shoe firms for a short time, planning to come back, but never coming back,” Ed Levy said.