Judicial appointments for three UVic Law alumni
It's been an impressive year for judicial appointments from among UVic Law alumni, many of them firsts in the faculty.
The most striking of these is the appointment in late July of Justice Russell Brown to the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Brown, an alumnus of the class of 1994, is the first UVic Law graduate to be appointed to Canada's highest court. He practiced in Victoria, Vancouver and Edmonton, was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta, and was appointed to the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in February 2013 and to the Court of Appeal of Alberta, Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories and Court of Appeal of Nunavut in 2014. You will find a brief profile of Justice Brown here.
Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon, a graduate of the class of 1983, was the first UVic Law appointment to the BC Court of Appeal. She was admitted to the BC Bar in 1985, practiced with Russell and DuMoulin from 1985 to 1997, and was associate counsel with Fasken Martineau from 1997 to 2008. During her distinguished time in practice, her main areas of practice were civil litigation, family law, administrative law, commercial law, privacy law, and health law. In 2008 she was appointed to the BC Supreme Court. Her appointment to the Court of Appeal took effect on 15 June 2015.
And last but not least, Dan Sudeyko, class of 1987, has been appointed to the BC Provincial Court. Soon-to-be Judge Sudeyko was (according to the Court’s press release) “called to the bar in 1988 and entered private practice soon after. For almost 25 years, he has represented youth in care in criminal matters at all levels of the courts. He was recently given an award from the Squamish and Tslell Waututh Nations for his participation in the First Nations court in North Vancouver. For over 12 years, Mr. Sudeyko served the Legal Services Society in the North Shore/Coastal region, providing legal services to those in need.”
There have now been 10 UVic Law alumni appointed to the BC Supreme Court and well over 20 to the Provincial Court, including the current Chief Judge Thomas Crabtree.