Advocate Jan 2014

THE ADVOCATE VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014
121
NEW JUDGE
By R.C. Tino Bella
Andrea Brownstone
From those of us settled contentedly (some might
say smugly) on the west coast, it is often a portent of
profound intelligence that someone has moved here
from the colder parts of the country. In Andrea’s
case, the route was somewhat circuitous, but ultimately
the more gratifying because of it.
Born and raised in Winnipeg, she demonstrated
early indications of that intelligence by graduating from high school at age
16, followed by a B.A. in English literature from the University of Manitoba.
As her dalliance in arts neared its completion, however, parental pressure
and student poverty compelled her, like many, to make a suitable career
choice. Although her childhood ambition had been to become an interpreter
at the UN, she quickly recognized that her lack of fluency in another
language was probably a major obstacle (once again that irrepressible intelligence
was at work). Ultimately, she attributes her decision to pursue law
to a day when her Shakespeare prof was looking out the window toward the
U of M law school, lamenting that some of his best students ended up “over
there”. She decided not to stick quite so close to home, and both her legal
career and her odyssey began with her move east to attend Osgoode.
It was a somewhat dissonant beginning for the eventual emergence of a
barrister that she was awarded Osgoode’s graduating prize for highest combined
marks in commercial law, business law and tax. Nevertheless, it was a
third-year semester at the Parkdale Community Legal Services clinic that
sparked her desire for the stimulation of litigation. Articles followed at a boutique
firm in Toronto, where she remained following her call until she married
and moved to pursue general litigation in Edmonton (it gets worse before
it gets better). Before long, to her considerable chagrin, she found herself with