Carey Linde

Class of 1969-1970

Originally from Vermont, Carey Linde was known for his student radicalism during his time at the University of British Columbia, where he first enrolled in 1960. He came to UBC with an interest in all things zoological, but was influenced by his international roommate in housing at Acadia camp and as a result discovered a multitude of interests in areas such as history, philosophy, and his eventual major of psychology. Following this discovery, he, with an impression similar to many students of the era, found UBC had little to offer him. Seeking other outlets for his new interests, Mr. Linde failed 2nd year. One unique way he chose to protest the lack of offerings from the university was to write a stream-of-consciousness essay detailing his exam invigilators actions during a second-year English final exam. He was unable to return to UBC due to his poor grades, and he ended up working for the psychedelic research academics Dick Alpert and Tim Louis at Harvard. During that time he also attended school at the Berkelee School of Jazz in Boston.

The UBC Senate soon decided to allow students who'd failed part of their schooling to return to UBC, and Carey Linde made his way back to Vancouver, ready to re-enroll in areas of study more related to his interests. In 1967 Carey Linde graduated from UBC with a bachelor's degree in Psychology. He then enrolled in law school at UBC, where he swears he “rarely studied, but never missed a class.” Instead, he spent his time on campus in extracurricular involvements. Mr. Linde wrote for the Ubyssey, which at that time published 3 times a week. He also ran for election to the Alma Matter Society, and won the position of Vice-President for 1968-69, but was also required to serve as acting president of the student union. At the time, the AMS completed and opened the new Student Union Building but Mr. Linde, like many radical student politicians, saw little use for his new AMS office. Instead he held regular sessions in his office for students to obtain legal advice, and was assisted in this by fellow students Stuart Rush and Dave Robertson. This program would go on to become the current Law Students Legal Advice Program (LSLAP), which provides legal assistance at clinics across Vancouver. In this role he also attended the Canadian Union of Students meeting in Guelph, arriving via a radicalizing experience at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Also as a student at the law school, Carey Linde became President of the Law Student Society in 1970. He'd been convinced to run by graduating students, who didn't want the election to be decided by acclamation. Rather than allow himself to be just a name on the ballot, Mr. Linde organized an ironic campaign and plastered the school with material promoting his student number. Reflecting on his win, he thinks that "the third year class got together and voted me in as a parting gift to the Dean." During his presidency, Carey Linde remembers convincing Dean Curtis to distribute a survey about cannabis use at the law school, in conjunction with the federal government's Le Dain Commission of Inquiry in the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. Linde also conducted his own commission of inquiry into some mushrooms growing on the Aggie Field at UBC, which he discovered to have psychedelic properties and believes to the first such mushrooms found this far north.

He took articles in the town of Kamloops, which had only 4 other articling students. Linde wanted to be a lawyer somewhere where there were no other lawyers, which at the time meant a town like Hope or Hazelton. However, a chance encounter on a flight from Prince Rupert to Masset led him to become the first lawyer in Haida Gwaii, another community without a lawyer at the time. In the early 1980s, he returned to Vancouver and opened a practice in family law. He has been an advocate of equal-time shared parenting. Linde writes, “I want to help reframe the debate from one of ‘gender war’ to a healthier model of co-parenting – for men, women, and especially for the sake of the kids.”

Carey Linde may retire one day, but for the time being insists that "the legal profession is harder to get out of than it is to get into."

Carey Linde was interviewed for the Peter A. Allard School of Law History Project in Summer 2013.


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