Profiles

Last year marked the 25th anniversary of Big Rock Brewery and for Ed McNally, it was the perfect excuse to throw another beer bash. Ed founded Big Rock Brewery in 1985 after decades of practicing law, farming and raising cattle. An Alberta native, Ed attended UBC Law in the army-hut days of the 1950s before there was a brick-and-mortar facility. “It was one of my smarter choices in life, going to UBC,” he says wistfully, recalling the dark foggy campus nights, an “interesting” roster of professors and classmates, and the formidable University President and law scholar Norman Mackenzie.

George Stewart Cumming (also known as George S. Cumming, George Scumming and X. Xumminf, Esq. (see page 61)) will become Master Treasurer January 1, 1983. George was born in Vancouver, B.C. in 1928. George’s father was with the Bank of Montreal which resulted in the family moving to Victoria, B.C. where George attended Oak Bay High School. There he excelled scholastically and as a rugger player. It is reliably reported that on a fairly regular basis he was separated from his rugby shorts both before, during and after rugger games ... 

Born on Aug. 27^th, 1923, in Salmon Arm, BC, Vince Reid’s path to UBC Law was a humble one. He was educated in a one-room country school for eight years. Before completing school, Reid enrolled in the armed forces as a mechanic and as a tank driver, and served on the front lines in Normandy, as part of the First Canadian Armoured Battalion. Wounded during the assault on the Rhine, Reid spent most of the next year recovering in hospital. While in the hospital, he was visited by a Major, who suggested that he go to university.

A lawyer who graduated with him from UBC in 1950 told me: “I never would have gone through law school without McEachern’s notes.” That voluntary confession, apart from its refreshing candour and expression of gratitude, illuminates not only the note-taker’s generous spirit but also his instantaneous comprehension and ability to record unfolding events quickly in legible hand. Those skills have come in handy ever since ... 

UBC was saddened by the passing of one its most distinguished faculty members, Dr. Charles Bourne, on June 25, 2012. Dr. Bourne completed a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1945, an LL.M. from Cambridge in 1947 and an S.J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1970. After several years at the University of Saskatchewan (College of Law), he moved to UBC in 1950 to join Dean George Curtis at the rapidly expanding law school. In 1957, Dr. Bourne was named a full professor. Dr.

On November 20, 1997, the B.C. Branch of the Canadian Bar Association presented Allan Bate, Q.C. with the prestigious Georges A. Goyer Q.C. Memorial Award for Distinguished Service. At a Bench and Bar Dinner hosted by Kerry Lynne D. Findlay, president of the B.C. Branch, he was surrounded by friends, colleagues and his family …

Richard Fraser Gosse, Q.C., known across Canada as Dick Gosse, was a lawyer of many careers, all of them pursued with flair and verve. He died in Vancouver on November 18, 2008. Few have had a legal career filled with such adventure, changing positions and new challenges, all of which were characterized by enthusiasm, delight in novel circumstances and great success.

“What in hell is the Jokers Club?” reads the first line of a Ubyssey article published in October, 1945. “A club for all nitwits, screwballs, and zanies,” was the answer of Alan Beesley, founding member, Noise Joker and club publicity man. “We are lunatics at large.” The Jokers Club is the first thing Beesley mentions now when asked about his years at UBC. “I was so busy I had to take every second day off from my studies,” he deadpans.

Brian William Ferriman McLoughlin was born October 4, 1927 in Victoria. He attended St. Michael’s School and Oak Bay High School where it is reputed he lost some of his innocence and most of his hair. After graduating from U.B.C. Law School he articled with Lawrence & Shaw where he has remained since his pre-Sputnik call to the Bar in 1950 ... 

Meredith J. is now the senior puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia having been sworn in on April 27, 1973. He was born in Vancouver in 1922 and was the son of the late Elmore Meredith, Q.C., a well known Vancouver lawyer, who, in his time, had been a Bencher and Treasurer of the Law Society ... 

For the first time since the early 1950’s (when William Haldane served as Master Treasurer), a Master Treasurer will hail from Victoria. This is not an insignificant feat when one considers that to lay claim to this office one must serve long and sufficiently well to achieve re-election at least three times over, and perhaps most importantly, if from Victoria, must survive many years of almost weekly round trips in the not so friendly skies of what was until recently known as “Scare-West”! ... 

Diana M. Priestly, who has served as Law Librarian and a member of the Faculty at both of the Province’s law schools, will retire from her position at the University of Victoria on June 30, 1987. Her association with the law and the legal profession in British Columbia began in January, 1946 when she enrolled in the Special Veteran’s Class at the U.B.C. Faculty of law. Prior to enrolling, she had served in the Womens’ Royal Canadian Naval Service from 1943-46 …

As lawyers, we like to tell “war stories.” We usually mean some court room drama, or perhaps a deal that went sideways. At 89 years of age, Don Easton has lots of war stories, gathered over a remarkable life and career. With 61 years at the bar, he has plenty of lawyer “war stories” from his time as a solicitor working at the heart of our province’s business community. He also has some other war stories, of the literal kind …

On Thursday, August 4, 1983 Louis Allan Williams, Q.C. was dealing with the routine of filling out an application to the Secretary of State for External Affairs for a new passport. Accompanying his application would be the green passport issued to him as a provincial Cabinet Minister and Provincial Attorney General. He was thus giving up one of the last perks which came to him as the 33rd Attorney General of British Columbia ...

Born in Kamloops in 1923, David R. Williams was a student during the earliest years of UBC Law, at a time when the classes were still conducted in repurposed army huts from the Second World War. After graduating in 1949, Williams practised civil and criminal litigation in Duncan.

Brian was born in Saskatoon in January 1923, the second of four brothers. Their father was a professor of economics and for a time had George R Curtis (later the first dean of UBC law school) as a student. One of Brian's brothers was Fred Carrothers. Fred was at various times dean of law at Ottawa and Western, president at the University of Calgary, and a long-time member of the Faculty of Law at UBC…

Robert Duncan Ross remembers two things from his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia - playing rugby and compulsory military drills required of all men his age during the Second World War. He continued schooling at UBC, graduating from law school in 1949. He left Vancouver half-way through articling to road trip with a friend to Florida, where they found a berth on a sailing vessel to adventure around the Caribbean for half a year.

Michelangelo (Mike) Provenzano died on October 19, 2015 aged 93. Born in Cranbrook, the third of four children of Italian immigrants, Mike and his siblings were raised by their mother after their father's suicide when Mike was a young boy. In high school, he played basketball and was the editor of the school yearbook. He graduated early during the Second World War and enlisted, becoming a flight instructor…

“I was born in a tar paper shack in Saskatchewan called Piapot, where Buff Sainte-Marie is from. My parents moved from Vancouver to get free land. It was the biggest mistake they made. They were there for about five years – that’s where I was born – and then they came back to Vancouver" ...