Law History Profiles

Bob Dick, QC graduated with a Bachelor of Laws Degree from UBC in 1966. Soon after, he became a partner at the Prince George law firm Wilson King, where he practiced until he retired in 2014.

During his nearly 50 years in practice, Dick held a wide variety of roles, including being retained as City Solicitor for Prince George for more than 30 years as well as a number of positions with the Canadian Bar Association.

Dick was recognized with the Queen’s Counsel designation in 1986 and was elected president of the Law Society of British Columbia in 1991.

Chris Heslinga earned his JD from the Allard School of Law in 2012 but soon found himself back on campus.

After a brief time in private practice, the Campbellford, Ontario native returned to the Law Students’ Legal Advice Program (LSLAP) where he now helps students handle client matters, oversees legal decision-making and teaches students how to think and practice like lawyers.

For technology lawyer Ryan Black, being a member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee for the Centre for Business Law is an important opportunity to give back to the legal community.

Lorna Strong’s story is a lesson in hard work, open-mindedness and adaptability.

Strong, who graduated from the Allard School of Law in 1998, entered law school after an Applied Sciences degree from UBC and a brief career as a nurse. At that time, her two daughters were just four and five years old. Despite the challenges she faced in balancing the rigour of law school with parenthood, Strong remembers her time as a student fondly.

When Andrew Halper graduated from the Allard School of Law in 1981, little did he know that his degree would lead him to live and work around the world.

After a stint in Vancouver as a Crown Counsel and then in private practice until 1989, Halper joined the Canadian diplomatic service, working in Ottawa and Hong Kong, and then at the Canadian embassy in Beijing between 1991 and 1994.

The Allard Law History Project sat down with Tamara Levy, QC in the summer of 2020: listen to the full interview. Since then, under her leadership, the UBC Innocence Project continues to work on the exoneration of the wrongfully convicted. On November 12, 2020, they had their first successful exoneration: Tomas Yebes was acquitted after a double-murder conviction in 1983 based on invalid expert evidence.

If you’re a current JD student or alumnus reading this, chances are that Elaine Lenki Borthwick reviewed your law school application. For the last 30 and some years (over 40 years total at UBC), Elaine has served as the law school’s Director, JD Admissions. From a former Prime Minister and numerous justices and judges, Elaine has admitted several generations of British Columbia's legal profession to law school. Her personalized approach to recruitment, and leadership in improving processes, has ensured we continually attract the highest caliber of students to the Allard School of Law.

Since being called to the British Columbia bar in 1966, Mitchell Gropper, QC has been a leader in the business law world.

After earning his BA and LLB from the University of Saskatchewan, Mr. Gropper spent 28 years at the Vancouver offices of McCarthy Tétrault LLP where he served as Managing Partner from 1988 to 1990. In 1998, he joined Farris LLP where he currently practices as a senior member of its business and corporate law group. He also holds an LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Allard Law History Project sat down with Anna Fung, QC in the summer of 2020: listen to the full interview. As of 2021, she is Deputy Chair of the BC Utilities Commission, Chair of the BC Unclaimed Property Society, and a Director of the BC Council of Administrative Tribunals.

Jane Shackell was just 20 years old when she entered the Allard School of Law in 1981, after completing three years of her Bachelor of Arts in political science at UBC.

Beyond the “impressive” faculty and course offerings, her first impression was that of a strong sense of community among students, one which would only grow stronger in her three years at the school.

Nigel is a Gitxsan-Cree lawyer at White Raven Law. He’s also the lead dancer with the Vancouver-based Indigenous dance troupe Dancers of Damelahamid, a scholar and a teacher of law, as well as a father to two young children – and just three years out of law school.

Christopher Hiebert had heard of the Indigenous Community Legal Clinic, a program offered by the Allard School of Law at UBC, long before he became a law student. He lived in a single-room occupancy hotel in Gastown, a block from the clinic’s front door.

He was intrigued. “The clinic inspired the idea that I could do something as a lawyer that wasn’t typical,” Mr. Hiebert says. Once he decided to become a lawyer, the Allard School of Law was the only law school he applied to – with the specific intent of working with the clinic.

Associate Professor Hoi Kong (inaugural Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, P.C., UBC Professor in Constitutional Law) joined the faculty in 2018.

Nico McKay is an Associate at the Vancouver office of Miller Thomson LLP (“Miller Thomson”). The core focus of his legal practice is litigation and he works closely with both the Commercial Litigation and Insurance Litigation groups at Miller Thomson. McKay’s litigation experience includes appearances before the Provincial Court of British Columbia, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the Civic Resolution Tribunal.

Recent graduate Jordan Leigh Lacroix is currently working as a Legal Aid in South Africa through the CBA Young Lawyers International Program. The program places young law graduates and lawyers in internships with overseas organizations working in law reform, human rights and access to justice. 

Tell us about the work that you’re currently doing in Cape Town, South Africa.

From her first year of law school, Carly Stanhope has shown a commitment to addressing issues around access to justice through countless hours of volunteering and taking on numerous roles both within and outside the Allard School of Law.

Toby Goldbach is an Assistant Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, having joined the faculty in 2017. She comes to the law school following a two-year teaching fellowship at Cornell Law School. She earned her doctorate from Cornell, where she was a Rudolf B. Schlesinger Research Fellow, a Visiting Scholar at the Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law at Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law, and held grants from the Institute for Comparative Modernities and the Berger Center for Comparative & International Law.

Michelle Casey graduated with the JD class of 2017 from the Peter A. Allard School of Law. She currently works as an Associate at Lawson Lundell LLP (“Lawson Lundell”) in Vancouver. Her practice’s core focus is on regulatory and environmental law. She has litigation experience at both the British Columbia Provincial Court and the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

“I have very high hopes for my generation. As millennials, we are fortunate to have been born into a world where many of the legal battles re: discrimination, racism, sexism etc. have already been fought and won, and so treating people equally and caring about human rights is second nature to us. That said, we are also a generation that is keenly aware of the gap between formal equality and what happens in reality.”

“Each person has a different perspective that is so incredibly valuable and I am so grateful for the friends I have made.”

Lisa Guidi participated in the Allard Law History Project Student Survey in 2016. The Project intends to track Ms. Guidi's career and build upon this historical record in the future. Her responses as a student are below:

Why did you choose to do law?