Devin Persaud, senior associate at BLG and a 2019 Lexpert Zenith Award winner, is the new president
The South Asian Bar Association (SABA) of Toronto has announced the following newly elected board executive members: Devin Persaud as president, Annie Tayyab as vice-president, Monty Dhaliwal as secretary and Mohena Singh as treasurer.
The association’s board of directors for 2021-2022 also includes Anisha Bhardwaj, Davin Garg, Maneesha Gupta, Ravi Jain, Komil Joshi, Arun Krishnamurti, Sarah Malik, Amrita Mann, Ashok Menen, Janani Shanmuganathan and Amrita Tamber. The association’s membership elected these new board and executive members during its annual general meeting on July 28.
“It is my privilege to lead this storied organization and I look forward to working with our new board on continuing SABA’s essential mandates,” said Persaud in SABA’s news release.
The association will keep supporting its members and communities as they recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and will be getting ready to host and showcase Toronto at the national SABA convention, to be held in 2024, Persaud added.
At Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Persaud advises clients on legal matters involving Canadian competition, antitrust, foreign investment, marketing, corporate compliance, internal investigations and potentially anti-competitive and consumer protection business practices.
Persaud, an advocate for diversity in the legal profession, has been recipient of the 2019 Lexpert Zenith Award as a Change Agent in Law and vice-president for membership of the South Asian Bar Association of North America.
At the same meeting, the association congratulated its Student Recognition Award Winners, who showed exceptional contributions to their schools, South Asian Law Students’ Association chapters and communities:
- Farrah Kudus from Queen’s University Faculty of Law
- Priyanka Bahl from the University of Ottawa
- Darren Gill from Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law
- Shruti Ramesh from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School
The association also recently celebrated its 15th anniversary via its first ever virtual conference last Dec. 17. The event called “Actionable Allyship: An Introspective look at Racial Justice” was attended by more than a hundred guests. Virtual remarks from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Doug Ford, Mayor John Tory, Chief Justice George Strathy and Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti approved of the association’s racial equality efforts.
The South Asian Bar Association of Toronto, with over 800 members, is the country’s largest equity-seeking bar organization aiming to promote the goals of South Asians within the legal profession.
