Farah Ismail
By Julius Melnitzer | May 27, 2023
Good general counsel know that “at the beginning” is frequently the best time to call in the troops from their trusted law firms. But “before the beginning” taxes the imagination – unless you happen to be Farah Ismail, senior vice-president and chief legal, privacy and compliance officer at Saint Elizabeth Healthcare, a Toronto-based not-for-profit healthcare provider that offers home, community, long-term, acute and primary care services nationally.
So, when SE’s chief executive officer, John Yip, asked Ismail to establish the organization’s first in-house legal department, she decided that a collaboration with Fasken Martineau Dumoulin’s health group, with whom Yip had enjoyed a longstanding relationship even before he joined SE in early 2022, was essential to the process.
“Although we’ve had a great deal of connection with the legal process over the years, the unique nature and sheer size of our organization has dissipated the centralization of that process,” says Ismail, a lawyer and a nurse. “As part of our goal of bringing this under one umbrella, and because of the complexity and diversity of issues we faced, I felt it important to kindle a deep relationship with the right external firm and make it an integral part of the launch of our department.” MORE . . .
Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at [email protected] or https://legalwriter.net/contact.
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