Branch President
Frits Verhoeven
Frits Verhoeven is a partner in the Vancouver law firm of Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP, and practises in the field of civil litigation.

Born in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands, in 1956, and raised in B.C., Frits obtained degrees in commerce and in law at UBC. After articling with Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP, he was called to the Bar in 1983. He was managing partner of the firm from 1997 to 1999.

Frits was elected to the CBABC Provincial Council in 1999, and re-elected in 2002. He served on the CBA’s Member Services Committee for four years, from 1999 to 2003. He was a member of the national CBA Special Committee on Financial Services, 2001/2002. During 2002/2003, he served as the Chair of CBABC’s Business of Law Committee. He has served on the Branch Executive Committee since August 2003, in 2004/2005 as Secretary-Treasurer and in 2005/2006 as Vice President.

Vice President
F. Kenneth Walton
F. Kenneth Walton obtained his law degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1972. He was called to the Saskatchewan Bar in 1973 and to the B.C. Bar in 1975. Save a year with the B.C. Department (as it then was) of the Attorney General, Ken has been in private practice throughout his career, in Victoria since 1975. At one time or another, Ken has done almost every aspect of courtroom work, plus some selected solicitors’ work mostly in Wills and Estates.

Ken served on the Victoria Bar Association in the late 1980s. An elected member of CBA Council this year, Ken was the Victoria Wills and Trusts Section Chair in 2003/2004. Ken has sometimes been a CLE lecturer in the area of ICBC Part 7 no-fault benefits. He has written articles for the Verdict on, among other things, experts’ fees and Canada Pension Plan Long Term Disability.

Ken comes to serve his fellow practitioners from a lengthy history of community service with Kinsmen, Rotary, K-40, the Y, Goodwill, and the board of an elder home.

Past President 2005/2006
Marguerite (Meg) E Shaw
A native of Lethbridge, Alberta, Meg has lived in B.C. since 1969. She graduated from UVic in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and from UBC in 1988 with her law degree. Articles in Kelowna were with the then firm of McAfee Harder. Meg is a partner with Hattori & Shaw, where her areas of specialization are family law, child advocacy, and wills and estates. As well, Meg has practised as a family protection mediator, child advocate, and contract counsel for the Coroner’s Service of B.C. She was an invited participant in discussion groups hosted by the Law Society on the regulation of mediation, and also an invited participant in discussion groups hosted by the Federal and Provincial governments on proposed changes to custody and access in the Divorce Act. Meg was the President of the Kelowna Bar Association for 2005/2006. Meg first served the CBABC as Chair of the Okanagan Family Law Section for three years, and was Co Chair of the Okanagan ADR Section. She served as an Officer on the Executive Committee for CBABC for two years, and continues to serve on various committees, such as Chair of the Social Services Task Force Committee. Meg served as Secretary Treasurer of the CBABC in 2003/2004 and Vice President in 2004/2005. Meg also served as the President of the Kelowna Bar Association in 2005/2006.

Other community involvement included serving as a Director on the Board of the Registered Nurses Association of B.C., the Board of the Kelowna Westbank YM YWCA, and the Board of the Institutional Research Review Committee for the Kelowna General Hospital. Meg has also been a guest lecturer at Okanagan University College, Cariboo College, and the Continuing Legal Education Society of B.C., and she has provided pro bono services for the Central Okanagan Hospice Association and the Elizabeth Fry Society.

Secretary-Treasurer
Miriam A. Maisonville
Miriam Maisonville was called to the Bar in B.C. in 1986 and to the Bar in Alberta in 1991. Born and raised in Vancouver, she graduated from the UBC law school in 1985. Miriam practices with the Ministry of Attorney General Appeals and Special Prosecutions, Commercial Crime section where she has conduct of chiefly commercial fraud prosecutions throughout the Province and Appeals. A member of the Bilingual Prosecutors group, she also conducts French language prosecutions.

Miriam practised civil litigation and conducted criminal defence work prior to joining the Ministry of Attorney General in 1994. She is a past Chair of the Vancouver Criminal Section from 2003/2004 and was elected to Provincial Council in 2004. She is member of the CBA National Council and is on the executive of the CBA National Conference of French Speaking common law members. Miriam is a past contributor of the Continuing Legal Education Society’s Annual Review of Law and Practice, in the area of Criminal Law. Her other community involvement includes serving as a Director on the Developmental Disabilities Foundation Board and volunteer competitive swim coaching.

Young Lawyers’ Representative
Marika Giles
Marika Giles graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2001 and, after clerking with the Federal Court of Canada, was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2002 and B.C. in January 2003. Marika is a barrister with Hungerford Tomyn Lawrenson and Nichols in Vancouver, practicing civil litigation, with particular emphasis on personal injury, employment, and commercial disputes. Marika also consults on privacy issues and has significant experience in administrative law, including professional regulation. Having grown up in Montréal, Marika is fluently bilingual, and is particularly proud of her work with the francophone community in Vancouver.

Marika has been an involved member of her university and law school communities, an active member of the CBA and is the Past Co-Chair of the Young Lawyers-Lower Mainland section. Marika’s goal, as the Young Lawyers Officer, is to see the CBA break down the barriers that limit the ability of so many young lawyers to thrive in the practice of law.

Officer
James M. Bond
James is an Associate Counsel in the Vancouver office of Lang Michener LLP. James practises in the areas of franchise and distribution law, privacy, technology, and intellectual property law, and has been ranked for the last four years as a “Leading Lawyer” in Canada by the legal publication, Lexpert.

James is an active volunteer, and is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Vancouver Bar Association, a former Legal Advisor and a current member of the Canadian Franchise Association Pacific Region Council, and a member of the Canadian Franchise Association Franchise Service Supplier Council. He is also a former member of the Board of Governors of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and the University of Alberta Senate. He was also recently Chair of the Continuing Legal Education courses on Privacy and was Chair of the Continuing Legal Education courses Franchising (2001) and Privacy (2004 and 2005). James holds a BA from the University of Calgary, where he was a Queen Elizabeth II Scholar, and an LLB from the University of Alberta. He was called to the B.C. Bar in 1996.

Officer
Stephen G. McPhee
Stephen began his legal career in South Africa and was called there in 1997. His law degree was earned at the University of Stellenbosch, situated in the heart of the South African winelands, which makes any successful academic endeavour there even more impressive. He immigrated to Canada in 1997, obtained his Canadian legal accreditation in 2000, and was called to the Bar in B.C. in 2002.

Stephen practises general commercial and civil litigation, personal injury and family law with Ramsay Lampman Rhodes in Nanaimo. He has a special interest in ADR.

Stephen is an elected member of Provincial Council for Nanaimo County, has been the Nanaimo ADR Section Chair, and has been Secretary of the Nanaimo Family Section since 2003.

Officer
Arlene H. Henry, QC
Arlene H. Henry, QC, solicitor, mediator, arbitrator, instructor, and coach was called to the Bar in 1986. As a sole practionner, her solicitor’s career has evolved to focus extensively in the aboriginal law area, including recent participation in self-government implementation and treaty negotiations.

She has been mediating since 1998 in civil and family; is a Certified Comprehensive Family Mediator; and a roster member of the B.C. Mediator Roster Society (Civil, Family and Child Protection), General Insurance Ombudservice and the Insurance Dispute Resolution Services of B.C. Panel; and a former member of the Provincial Court Civil Mediation Roster. She has been mediating child protection disputes for five years throughout the province.

She has been the Law Society appointment to the City of Vancouver Building Permit Appeal Board since 1999, and served six years on the Vancouver Foundation’s Children, Youth and Families Advisory Committee.

Arlene was elected to the Provincial Council in 2005 and appointed as Alternate Executive Liaison to National Futures Committee in 2006. She chaired two of the organizing sub-committees for the 2005 CBA CLC in Vancouver. She has been a member and now current Chair of the CBA Member Dispute Resolution Committee. She served 11 years on the Real Property Section’s Strata Property Act Amendment Committee assisting in the drafting of the new legislation and regulations.

This article was published in the October 2006 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2006, all rights reserved.