Each year, the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Board of Trade present these awards to business leaders under age 40 based on their business accomplishments, professional experience and community involvement.
Since completing her JD/MA (International Affairs), Jacqueline Bonisteel has worked as a Canadian immigration, refugee and citizenship lawyer, with particular focus on corporate immigration and litigation.
Since 2016, she has been a partner at Corporate Immigration Law Firm, an Ottawa and Toronto-based firm involved exclusively in the practice of Canadian, US and foreign immigration and consular matters. Prior to that, she was an associate with the Immigration Law Group at Perley Robertson Hill McDougall, assisting clients in navigating the Canadian immigration system and in overcoming barriers to successful immigration, refugee and citizenship applications.
This experience marries perfectly with her pro bono work with the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program, which matches lawyers with groups of Canadians, most recently with those involved in the Afghan refugee crisis, to advise them and help them by reviewing forms.
She is also an active participant in the Canadian Bar Association’s annual Immigration Section conference (with strong emphasis on active: she led participants in a run around Ottawa before the conference this past May!)
Jacqueline is living proof that connections and friendships made at law school continue to be integral years after graduation. “My best source for client referrals has been the people I went to law school with,” she notes.
While a student at the Faculty, Marc Sauvé worked as a research assistant at the Supreme Court of Canada and at Heenan Blaikie LLP. It was there that he met his mentor Ronald Caza and became interested in litigation.
Sauvé graduated in 2008 and was admitted to the Bar in 2009. He initially worked for Heenan Blaikie LLP as a litigation lawyer, but a few years later he co-founded David | Sauvé LLP.
He is actively involved in his community and is a staunch supporter of the Francophonie in Ontario. While studying common law in French, Sauvé was elected vice-president of student council while promoting bilingualism within the Faculty of Law. He was also the youngest president in history at the Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario (AJEFO) from 2020 to 2022.
Today, he has a bilingual practice in Ottawa and Montreal.
“My career wouldn’t have been possible without my degree from the University of Ottawa,” said Sauvé.
The awards will be presented at a special gala.