Advocate Jan 2014

THE ADVOCATE VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014
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conduct department. A restructuring in 2010 saw her assigned to the even
broader role of manager of investigations, monitoring and enforcement, a
position she maintained with great distinction and widespread appreciation
until her appointment to the bench.
In response to her growing stature at the Law Society, Andrea was
recruited to teach a full-term course in ethics at the UBC law school. She
provided a combination of pragmatism and theory that was much appreciated
by her students. For all of you from the criminal defence bar who are
reading this in search of an answer to the question of whether you should
plead clients before her, some guidance might be taken from the fact that
her generosity in grading at UBC earned her the moniker “Professor A-B”.
Andrea is calm and blessed with a generous amount of common sense
and proportionality. She is also highly principled, but be forewarned that
in the face of an obvious injustice some of that calmness and proportionality
might be temporarily suspended. Following completion of her first year
of law school, her family took a vacation together. Her father had rented a
vehicle suited to the size of the family and the venture. They were stopped
at a roadside fruit stand when they heard a bang as the rental vehicle was
hit. The fruit stand owner came over to act as a mediator, and it was determined
that her father would drive to his friend’s garage, where the wrongdoer
would pay for the damage. With the inflated sense of skill that one
year of law school can unfortunately impart, Andrea went along to act as
legal counsel. Once at the garage, the wrongdoer began to balk at paying,
claiming to have no money. Drawing upon her vast legal knowledge,
Andrea began to explain why he had to pay. An increasingly animated discussion
ensued, with bits of Arabic and the odd Latin maxim being thrown
about. A small crowd began to form. While her father was becoming concerned
over the change of mood, the baby barrister was in full force and
determined not to back down. In the meantime, her father did some quick
calculations, determined that the fight reduced to the equivalent of
roughly $15 and promptly agreed to pay. It apparently took some time
for Andrea to forgive him for snatching defeat from the jaws of her first
victory.
Her experience in criminal law has been more limited than her civil and
family background, but she is not altogether without previous exposure to
criminals. As a teenager, she biked to her summer job at a day camp. At the
end of the first day, with that feeling of initial disbelief which is then followed
by a sense of immense violation, she realized that her bicycle had
been stolen. When asked why she hadn’t locked it, she said ingenuously
that she thought crooks would prefer the challenge of taking one that was