Nicole D'Aoust

Practice Areas

Nicole D’Aoust is a partner specializing in charity and not-for-profit law. She advises on organizational structure, governance, tax, CRA regulatory and compliance issues, operational and financial matters, domestic and international activities, social finance, charitable gifts and receipting, fundraising, endowments, investments, related business activities, donor advised funds, audits, restructurings, mergers, advocacy, anti-spam, and privacy. Nicole is fully bilingual and works with clients across Canada in French and English.

In 2020, Nicole was appointed to the federal government’s Technical Issues Working Group (TIWG) as a representative of Imagine Canada. TIWG advises CRA on issues related to the regulation of registered charities and other qualified donees in Canada. Nicole is a member of the Canadian Bar Association’s Charity and Not-for-Profit Law Executive, the Ontario Bar Association’s Charity and Not-for-Profit Law Executive, as well as the Canadian Association of Gift Planners’ Government Relations Committee.

Nicole has completed CPA Canada’s three-year In-Depth Tax Course. She is the former co-editor of Canadian Tax Focus, a Canadian Tax Foundation (CTF) newsletter and a former member of the CTF Young Practitioners’ Steering Committee. Nicole is the past co-chair of the Toronto Orchestra’s Young Leadership Council.

Prior to joining the firm, Nicole practiced in the areas of corporate tax, tax litigation, and dispute resolution with a big four accounting firm in Toronto.

While in law school, Nicole completed an internship with the law branch of the Supreme Court of Canada and was a semi-finalist in a five-day commercial negotiation competition in Paris, France. Nicole was involved in several law school activities including being elected Senior Articles Editor of the Ottawa Law Review, as a teaching assistant for the Faculty of law’s alternative dispute resolution program, and as an exchange student in Mexico City. Upon graduating from law school, Nicole received a special distinction from the Faculty of Law for her third-year major paper.