By Jessica Mach for Canadian Lawyer Magazine
As a lawyer working in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley, Patricia Blair is intimately familiar with the disproportionate ratio between the need for legal services and the resources available outside of major cities.
“The sole practitioners and smaller firms who are providing legal services outside of the major centers are really on the front line of the access to justice dilemma that we face in BC,” Blair told Canadian Lawyer.
“The people that I talk to – and our experience at my firm – is that people are calling every day, all day, looking for a lawyer, looking for someone to help them with their lawyer,” Blair says. “And there’s not enough lawyers practising in those smaller centers often.”
On Monday, Blair, a partner and founder of River Valley Law LLP, took over as president of the Canadian Bar Association’s British Columbia branch. Much of her one-year term will be devoted to addressing such challenges.
According to Blair, this will involve talking to lawyers working in smaller centers to determine how the CBABC can support their needs. Ensuring these lawyers are aware of existing CBABC resources – including practice management tools and a resource called SoloLink that connects users with other lawyers for advice on various matters – is also key.
Blair says fulfilling her mandate also involves promoting the benefits of working in smaller centers to lawyers who aren’t already doing so – especially younger lawyers at early stages of their careers who may not know that there are more opportunities to immediately jump into client-facing work when they opt for a smaller center versus a large firm or a major city.
“Newer or younger lawyers are ideal, simply because we have a lot of turnover happening in the smaller centers where lawyers are retiring, and then there aren’t new lawyers there to replace them,” Blair says. “The people in those communities need legal representation, and it can be very challenging for people in smaller communities to have to travel to a larger center, or travel at all, to actually… access the legal services that they need in their day-to-day lives.”
Often, she adds, “there isn’t anyone in their local community to provide that for them.”
Blair has other priorities on her agenda, too. Among them is leading the CBABC as it continues to advocate against the Legal Professions Act, which the BC NDP introduced last year. Under the legislation, the Law Society of BC would be replaced with a single regulatory body that oversees lawyers, paralegals, and notaries across the province.
Two challenges to the Legal Professions Act – filed by the LSBC and the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia – are set to go to trial on Oct. 14. The CBA is an intervenor in both cases.
“Our position is that the act is unconstitutional given that it interferes with lawyer-client relationships and it erodes the protection for the independence of the bar and its self-regulation,” Blair says.
Blair will also lead the CBABC as it reviews its reconciliation action plan – which the organization first launched in 2018 in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to actions – with the assistance of a new reconciliation action manager and input from CBABC members.
Blair replaces Lee Nevens as CBABC president, who served in the role for the 2024-2025 term.