Alan Borovoy earned a Bachelor’s degree and an LLB by 1956.  By the time the Canadian Civil Liberties Association recruited Borovoy in 1968 to be its General Counsel, he had already distinguished himself with the Ontario Labour Committee for Human Rights (Jewish Labour Committee).  In 1961 he had organized activists in Halifax and attracted a great deal of attention in taking up the cause of the residents of Africville, which led to the formation of the Halifax Advisory Committee on Human Rights.  A year later he was at the centre of a successful lobby to introduce legislation against racial discrimination in Ontario.  When natives from Kenora approached Borovoy about discrimination and poor government services in the 1960s, he organized a large protest march to City Hall with hundreds of natives from neighbouring reserves to demand everything from telephones to an alcohol treatment centre (which were eventually provided).

Having been raised Jewish in Toronto, Borovoy had an appreciation for the plight of minorities, having himself experienced discrimination.  He lived and worked all his life in Toronto where the CCLA is based.  Borovoy would go on to lead the CCLA for the next four decades and become one of the most recognizable civil libertarians in Canada.

Although there is currently no biography of Alan Borovoy, his books detail many of his experiences with the CCLA (see Further Reading).