Law school holds many sweet memories for Aaron Emes and Amreen Omar, who met as first-year students while volunteering at a legal clinic. The education was excellent, says Emes, a partner at Torys LLP. But the experience extended far beyond the classroom for the Calgary native and his future wife, who was from New Brunswick.

"Neither of us was from Toronto. The law school gave us an instant family."

Omar, now a professor at Toronto's Seneca College, recalls meeting with friends in the rotunda at Flavelle House, and late nights studying at the Bora Laskin Library, which back then was almost new.

"It was a very intellectual environment," she says. "You wanted to be there every day to learn."

Today, the couple still counts law school classmates among their closest friends and colleagues. And now, they say, it's their generation's turn to pave the way for future students, to give them a state-of- the-art building where they too can learn and linger.

"Amreen mentioned how much she loved working at the Laskin Library," Emes says. "It took others to contribute funds to have that built. Now the next generation will benefit from what we're doing."

Aaron Emes and Amreen Omar, LLB 1998Aaron Emes, LLB 1998
Amreen Omar, LLB 1998



By Karen Gross and Lucianna Ciccocioppo / Photo by Nigel Dickson