Multiple Paralympics medal winner Lee Pearson lambasted the process for, in his view, awarding higher gongs to able-bodied athletes, and the media piled into to Hector Sants, the former head of the UK’s financial watchdog, who bagged an award despite being accused by many, according to The Independent newspaper, of ‘being asleep at the wheel’ when the Northern Rock bank went bust in 2007.

Olympic medals

But Cherie Blair QC, wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony, and a leading employment law specialist barrister, led the legal pack, in what the newspaper described as a less controversial choice. Also on the Olympics’ theme, Eleri Wones, the deputy director at the Treasury Solicitor’s Department was recognised for legal services to the 2012 games.
Others given the nod from Britain’s legal world included: David Wootton, the current Lord Mayor of the City of London and a former corporate lawyer at global law firm Allen & Overy; Oswyn Paulin, head of the government legal service at the Northern Ireland Executive; Isabel Letwin, director of legal services at the Department of Health; Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor for London; Diane Burleigh, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives; Judith Freedman, professor of tax law at Oxford University; and Pauline Donleavy, registrar at the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

Canadian gongs

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic officials in Ottawa were busy doling out Order of Canada honours, with seven from the legal profession picking up awards.
According to a report in the Canadian Lawyer magazine, they are: retired Supreme Court judge Louise Charron; Phil Fontaine, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the body representing native Americans, who is now a special adviser at the local office of London-based global law firm Norton Rose; Roderick Macdonald, a McGill University law professor; Rebecca Cook, a law professor at the University of Toronto; Fred Martin, a practising lawyer and equalities campaigner; and Linda Dranoff, a specialist family lawyer.
Rounding out the list is one name that the magazine acknowledges is arguably tangential to the legal profession. Ken Dryden, a former ice hockey star, also happens to have a law degree.