Profiles

Justice Catherine Bruce is a woman of many talents and great energy. She has a distinguished record of professional achievement and service. She graduated from UBC in 1976, second in her class, and then articled at Shrum Liddle & Hebenton (as it then was). Yearning for academe, she attended LSE to take an LL.M. in 1978. On return to Canada, she spent three years as in-house counsel for the Canadian Airline Flight Attendants' Association, which post she left in 1981 to join Braidwood &Co., where she practised labour, criminal and civil litigation.

Kenneth Stephen Tessovitch was born in The Pas, Manitoba on March 15, 1947. He was vague about his antecedents, describing himself only as "White Russian". While no doubt this was in reference to the legendary cocktail, Ken's taste ran more to cold beer and homemade red wine. Although his ancestors may or may not have hailed
from Eastern Europe, he certainly seemed built to withstand the type of weather one might experience in that part of the world. His parents eventually relocated to Prince George which had an equally inhospitable climate in wintertime.

“We buried my aunt yesterday,” Leslie Pinder begins. “I was reflecting at the service that she was actually the one who got me into all of this. [She] was a very beautiful but rather stern, matriarchal kind of woman. She said, ‘And what are you going to do in your life?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m going to become a writer.’ She said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, you can’t become a writer. You have no experience! Why don’t you get a job at the police department? You’ll get experience there!’ For some reason, I picked up the challenge and thought, ‘Well, you know, she’s probably right.’”

When J. Parker MacCarthy left lovely Cobble Hill for Quebec City in mid-August this year, he went as one of Vancouver Island’s more experienced and admired general practitioners. He returned a little later as President of the B.C. Branch of the Canadian Bar Association – a fitting tribute for a fine person. He is the first President from the Island and only the second from outside the Lower Mainland … 

"One of the things as a lawyer is you don't often get to see physical manifestations of what you've done...but to see a physical manifestation, whether it's that I go up to Whistler and drive along the Sea to Sky Highway, or I go to a hospital or a school that I was involved in, it's really satisfying. It justifies the hard work." - Anne Stewart, QC, YMCA Woman of Distinction, Canada's Top 25 Woman Lawyers, Public-Private Partnership Projects Pioneer, Class of 1975.

The current president of the law society was recognized, early in life, as a person of considerable intellect when at the tender age of 17 he led to the Burnaby Central High School “Reach for the Top” team. His athletic skills were not quite as remarkable, although it may be that the number of times he banged his head on the mat in wrestling matches was part of the process through which sense was knocked into it …

Born and raised in New Zealand, Professor Paterson attained a law degree in 1969 (coming first in his year) from the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand’s first Maori woman lawyer was a classmate). His next step was graduate school at Stanford University in California, followed by a professorship at Allard School of Law in 1975.

Each of Brad's three names is rooted in that family history: "Bradford" is after Governor Bradford, an early governor of the Plymouth colony; Mr.

Wanda Dorosz is founder, president and chief executive officer of the Quorum Group of Companies, a Toronto-based funds manager that has specialized in technology-based investing, real estate funds management and growth capital investing since 1987. Ms. Dorosz is the first Canadian woman ever to launch a venture capital firm.

The journey to the president’s desk is long and arduous for any bencher and particularly so for a sole practitioner, barrister, father of six and aspiring farmer from Prince George. We have known and enjoyed Richard for many years here in Cariboo County and have seen first-hand the scrupulous and unstinting effort and energy that he devotes to his bencher duties and Law Society initiatives. Our members and the public have a tireless worker in this president ...

After graduating from UBC in 1971 with a BA in Film Production and English and then traveling through Europe and Asia for a year, Peter Grant was without work. An employment counselor asked him what he was trained to do, and he answered, “‘I’m in film. I want to be a film producer.’ And she said, ‘Have you got any other options?’ And I said, “Well, I’ve been accepted to law school, but I don’t really want to go.’ So she said, ‘Go to law school. There is no future in film in this country.’” Grant went to law school ... 

“Pure synchronicity” is the phrase Louise Mandell uses to describe the process by which she arrived at UBC for law school. Teaching certificate, education degree and some traveling under her belt, she says, “I had no clue what I was going to do. So I applied randomly to the London School of Economics, Simon Fraser University’s grad program in communications, UBC law school … and UBC’s [acceptance] came in first. Cosmic lottery.”

On November 8, 2013, the Honourable Justice Christopher Hinkson was sworn in as the sixteenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. His appointment was universally well received by the court, the bar and the public…

Having known Gordon Turriff, Q.C., for more than a collective century, it is somewhat remarkable that we cannot easily describe the Law Society’s new president in simple terms. Gordon is first, and truly, a British Columbian and Vancouverite. He was born and raised on the west side of Vancouver, the younger of two children of Les and Mary Turriff. His father was a manager with an international transportation firm, and his mother, after raising their family, was secretary to the chancellor of UBC …

Thanks largely to Derek’s efforts the attitude of the profession toward alcohol and drug problems has changed dramatically. People are more open about their problems and the problems of others and are much more inclined to seek help and deal with their problems. [The Lawyers Assistance Program (“LAP”)] now has a case load of about 500 people at any given time. It has approximately 300 volunteers and three full-time and one part-time lawyers/counselors. It has also opened a satellite office in Victoria.

On December 16, 1985, Mary Ellen Boyd took her seat on the Bench of the County Court of Vancouver. There, she will no doubt continue to hold that professional respondent which she so deservedly earned in her practice at the Bar. Her Honour was born in Saskatoon ...

Madam Justice Mary Victoria Newbury practised principally as a corporate commercial lawyer. However, she was best known as a "lawyers' lawyer". At both her former firm, Ladner Downs, and her last firm, Fraser & Beatty, her partners looked to her when they were confronted with legal problems of exceptional difficulty. Her vast legal knowledge, her superb analytical skills and her ability to reach a conclusion speedily were renowned.

In 1982, Jennings decided to leave the law practice to pursue a life less ordinary - in his case, opening a fly-fishing shop in Calgary, where he had lived as a teenager in the 1960s. In the space of just a few minutes, Neil Jennings rattles off quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes and George Carlin with equal respect. It makes sense. Holmes ("Most people die with the music still in them.") and Carlin ("It's just STUFF!") were addressing the same, age-old relationship between happiness and materialism.

Professor Joseph Weiler joined the UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law as Assistant Professor in 1974. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979, and became a Full Professor in 1987. He earned his BA with Honors at the University of Toronto in 1969, his LLB at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in 1972 and his LLM at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 1974.

Karen was born in Victoria not so many years ago. She lived with her parents in England after her birth, returning to Victoria as a wee slip of a girl, ultimately graduating in Honours English from the University of Victoria. Karen attended UBC Law School, where she was affectionately known as Boomer. She obtained her law degree in 1974 and was called to the Bar of British Columbia on 1975. Mr. and Mrs. Nordlinger, Sr. for their sins, produced two lawyers. Karen’s only sibling, peter, practices law in Victoria ...