Firm Notes

What's New at Conkie & Company

New Faces, New Honours

Readers of the Newsletter will be interested to learn that we have welcomed two new members to Conkie & Company in recent months:

Julia Dmytryshyn

Julia Dmytryshyn comes to Vancouver by way of Los Angeles, where she graduated from law school, passed the California bar exam, and practiced at a litigation firm for about 18 months. She returned home to Vancouver, articled at a boutique commercial litigation firm, and was called to the bar in British Columbia in early 2008. Julia has appeared in Supreme Court and Provincial Court.

Her practise experience includes employment law, advising both employers and employees, entertainment law and general commercial litigation. Previously, Julia's clients have included landlords, companies, entertainment companies, and real estate developers.

Carmen Cheung

Carmen Cheung joins the firm as an articled student after six years practising at a large Manhattan firm in complex commercial litigation as well as human rights. She completed her law degree at Columbia Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University.

Carmen is also an erstwhile printmaker and keeps active in the arts through her work with Malaspina Printmakers Society, a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver. She serves on that organization's Board of Directors and chairs the Exhibitions Committee.  Carmen studied printmaking in college, where she won the Lenore Wilson Prize in her senior year.  While in law school, Carmen worked as an apprentice to a master printer, and her own work has been shown alongside that of Louise Bourgeois and Elizabeth Peyton.

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Continuing with the artistic theme, Jennifer Conkie was please to learn last Spring that she was a co-winner in the 2007 Advocate Short Story Competition. Her winning entry, entitled "Beloved of the Sky", was a wistful story about an Anglican minister with a long-held secret that turns into a moral dilemma when he receives an unexpected letter from a British law firm. Jennifer shared the top prize with Richard Olson. Her prize was a $400 gift certificate to Duthie's bookstore.

It was a challenging assignment for Jennifer and all entrants of the competition. The rules specified that, among other things, the story must deal with a legal subject; that it take place in Canada, France and England; that it contain the words "plangent" and "anodyne"; that it mention a religious ritual, a painting by a famous B.C. artist and other mind-bending conditions. A PDF version of Jennifer's story can be viewed here.

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In September, Jennifer and Carmen attended the Second National Pro Bono Conference for lawyers, judges and community representatives. The Vancouver conference focused on major issues and themes of pro bono culture and practice, and such speakers as the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada; the Honourable Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada; Mike Harcourt, former Premier of British Columbia, and many others. One of the highlights of the conference was a very moving presentation by Dennis Edney, an Alberta lawyer who is acting as pro bono counsel for Omar Khadr. This compelling human rights issue is a subject near and dear to those of us at Conkie & Company. Please see Carmen Cheung's article elsewhere in this newsletter.

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In other news, Jennifer Conkie has been an Adjunct Professor at UBC's Faculty of Law for the last two years, teaching a one-semester course entitled "Women, Law & Social Change." Her students are drawn from both the Law Faculty and the Women's Studies Department in the Faculty of Arts.

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Jennifer Conkie sits on the Law Society of British Columbia's Task Force on the Retention of Women in Law. The issue of retaining women in the legal profession is one the Law Society's chosen priorities this year. President John Hunter QC has assembled an excellent cast for the task force. Studying the thorny problem of how to keep and advance women in the profession, supplemental to the solid work done by the earlier task force studying similar issues chaired by Gavin Hume QC, includes preparation of the business case, studying the extensive reports and research undertaken by other law societies and jurisdictions in this area, and then creatively considering the application of all that information to our situation at home.

We are most fortunate to have excellent members on this task force: our able chair, Kathryn Berge, QC, and associate counsel of Berge, Hart, Cassels is assisted by the well-informed and well-organized Susanna Tam of the Law Society. It is an honour to work with the other members of the task force, who make a very fine team: Gavin Hume, QC, who will be assuming the leadership of the Law Society of BC next year, and partner at Faskens; Jan Lindsay, partner of Lindsay Kenney; Roseanne Kyle, partner of Miller Thompson; Lisa Vogt, regional managing partner of McCarthy Tetrault; Anne Giardini, the new President of Weyerhaeuser; Maria Morellato, QC, partner of Blakes; and Richard Stewart, QC, partner of Cook Roberts.

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Artists' Corner

Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan has been busy promoting her new album, Closer, including guest appearances on Leno, Letterman, Good Morning America, CBC's Q with Jian Ghomeshi and others. She was nominated as one of the top 20 players in "the history of European culture in British Columbia" by the Vancouver Sun, and she is headlining the February 2009 Cultural Olympiad, the countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Perhaps even more significantly, she continues to be a philanthropist and humanitarian, with her music outreach program for inner-city school kids in Vancouver. She has also helped raise millions for the SPCA, and a multitude of other charitable donations through Lilith Fair, and will be honoured for this work at the Juno Awards,with the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award.

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Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd, currently touring in support of his eighth album, Dark Shades of Blue, recently had the honour of having his song, "Shelter" played in outer space for the astronauts in the U.S. space shuttle, "Endeavor." dedicated to Commander Chris Ferguson by his brother." You can hear the broadcast by clicking here. "Shelter" is from Xavier's 2005 CD, Good Spirit.

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Joe Keithley

Joe Keithley (aka Joey Shithead), the founder and driving force of D.O.A., the legendary seminal Vancouver punk band, has been touring recently to promote the band's new album Northern Avenger produced by Bob Rock, and its Smash The State DVD. Joe was recently nominated as one of the top hundred influences in B.C. history in a special ballot by the Vancouver Sun. Sun readers and Internet followers are voting on the newspaper's website for Joe and a list of other B.C. luminaries. Click here to vote for Joe and your other favourites.

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Human Rights Corner

Shelagh Day

Shelagh Day, with whom Jennifer has worked on poverty and equality law projects over the years, has won a Governor General's award in recognition of her work advocating on behalf of women's equality. She is a director of the Poverty and Human Rights Centre and Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, and was the first president of the Legal Education Action Fund (LEAF). Ms. Day has worked tirelessly for decades to improve the lives of Canadian women, especially the poor. She has made submissions to the United Nations, including personal appearances before committees, and she plays an important role seeking to ensure Canada's compliance with the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. We, at Conkie & Company, salute her!