BarTalk April 1999
Volume 11, Number 2

The Branch office recently recognized Ruth Fraser’s 10 years of service to the Branch. Ms. Fraser, who is responsible for the Branch Database and Records Management systems, was presented with a certificate and given a dinner for two paddlewheel cruise along the Fraser River.

Since Ms. Fraser joined the CBA staff team in 1989, the Branch support staff has grown from seven to 17. When she first started work, Dial-A-Law was a one-person operation, Lawyer Referral was done manually with the names of lawyers on cards, and the very first issues of The Lawyers Directory and BarTalk were “hot off the presses”.

Of the many changes in the Branch, Ms. Fraser says the biggest is in the sheer volume of services provided in-house as opposed to contracted out. Ms. Fraser says “We give members a lot more now than we used to, and we produce more.” She also notes that in her time at the Branch, the number of Sections served has almost doubled.

Ms. Fraser has many tales of the people and personalities involved in the life of the Branch. “It is a great place to work,” she says. “The comradeship and everything else in the office -- it’s great. It’s like a family.”

On behalf of all the members of the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch, we thank Ruth Fraser for her years of dedicated service and loyalty to the CBA.

This article was published in the April 1999 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2005, all rights reserved.