Members

Benjamin Bruce Warnsby (Bruce) is a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Citizen and a member of the Crow clan. He was president of the Yukon Branch of the Canadian Bar Association in 2022-23. As a disabled person (written communication), he is passionate about supporting both Indigenous and disabled people in the legal profession. In 2014, he completed his law degree at the University of Victoria. He had the great fortune to intern with the Maori Land Court and Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand. Prior to law school, he worked for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in in Treaty implementation negotiations. Following his call to the bar in 2016, Bruce practiced for two years as a sole practitioner in criminal defence. His current practice focuses on Yukon First Nations Treaty Implementation and Governance, primarily in justice working to re-awaken Indigenous laws. He is a member of the Judicial Council of the Territorial Court, the Yukon Water Board, and he serves as Secretary of the Law Society of Yukon. Outside of work, he enjoys walking, listening to science fiction or history audiobooks, and dancing and singing with the Han Singers. He performed in the 2010 Vancouver Opening Ceremonies and has a passion for good peanut-free food and all things nerdy.

Carley is a managing partner with Lutz Parish Gerrish in New Brunswick, having been at the firm since 2004. She has appeared at all levels of Court in New Brunswick. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology from Simon Fraser University in 2001, Bachelor of Law from the Université de Moncton in 2004. She has taught at the University of New Brunswick Law School and has taught at the New Brunswick Bar Course. She is the former president of the Law Society of New Brunswick. 

Carley received the E. Neil McKelvey Q.C. Pro Bono and Volunteer Service Award in 2019, the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers in 2018, the Town of Hampton Small Business Week Award for Community Leadership in 2015. Her community involvement includes serving as Chair of the Hestia House board of directors, board member of Mindcare NB through the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation and incoming President of the Rotary Sussex. She is the only female official inducted into the North American Men’s Fast Pitch Hall of Fame.

Clare Jennings, KC, has been a provincial Crown Counsel in Victoria, BC, since her call to the bar in 2008. She has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from McGill University and earned her law degree at the University of Victoria. A CBA member since 2006, Clare has been involved as executive of the CBABC Criminal Justice-Victoria Section and served on several committees, including Access to Justice, Restorative Justice, and chairing the Professional Issues Committee for three years. She served on the CBABC Board of Directors from 2018 to 2022, culminating in a term as President in 2021-22. She has been involved with the Victoria Law Day committee since 2008 and writes the scripts for their annual mock trial. Clare has co-coached University of Victoria moot teams for over a decade, including the MacIntyre Moot and the Gale Moot.  She has taught at PLTC and is a regular presenter at professional development courses, acted as a Law School Mentor, and been an Articling Principal. In addition to her work with CBA and CBABC, Clare is a member of the Board of Directors of the Restorative Justice Association of BC and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Victoria Bar Association. For fun, Clare reads, bakes, and recently joined a community choir.

Evan is a Regina based in-house lawyer with Viterra, a leading global agribusiness with more than 16,000 employees in 38 countries, with his current duties split between commercial legal services, mergers & acquisitions, and oversight of Viterra’s Canadian compliance program. Prior to his move in-house with Viterra in 2011, Evan practiced with Miller Thomson LLP. In 2017, Evan completed the one-year Business Leadership Program for In-House Counsel at the Rotman School of Management, earning the CIC.C designation. Throughout his career, Evan has been heavily involved with the CBA, and previously served as the President of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association, a significant and growing constituency within the CBA, uniting a membership of over 5,000 in-house lawyers across the country.

Graeme Maitland is an associate at Aarbo Fuldauer LLP in Calgary, Alberta. He focuses his practice primarily on general civil litigation, employment law & human rights, and family law. Graeme serves as the National Chair of the CBA Young Lawyers, after being a member of the Executive for the last seven years and having been the CBA Alberta South Young Lawyers Chair from 2017-2019. After becoming a member of the CBA on his third day of law school at Dalhousie University, Graeme has been an active member, including being the past chair of the Alberta Branches Articling Students Section from 2017-2018 and being a current member at large on the Alberta South Young Lawyers Section and a member at large on both the National and Alberta South Small, Solo and General Practice Sections.

John Inglis is a lawyer with over 20 years of legal experience. He specializes in family law issues, environmental issues, real estate problems (including easements, boundaries, and trespass), and land development matters (including permits, zoning and variances, and agreements). He has a passion for the more personal side of law, and helps people with by-law prosecutions and their wills, powers of attorney and estate issues. He also offers practical and strategic legal advice on permitting, licensing, compliance, environmental assessments, contamination issues, and regulatory issues. John earned his Bachelor of Laws, LL.B in Land Development from York University Osgoode Hall Law School and an M.E.S. in Environmental Planning, also from York University. He also holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees, in Philosophy and Linguistics.

Kelly McDermott is a senior solicitor at the Regional Municipality of Durham specializing in labour and employment law. She has been practicing in labour law for 17 years, and, in addition to her in-house municipal practice, she has practiced at both national and boutique firms on both sides of the bar.

She has volunteered on various boards of directors and committees including the Durham Legal Aid Clinic, Durham Region Law Association, Grandview Kids, and the Emergency Services Steering Committee. Kelly has been involved with the OBA and on the association’s Board of Directors and Council in various capacities for many years. She became OBA president in March of 2023 and is focusing her mandate on creating reliable, accessible support networks to assist lawyers facing challenges and changes in their careers and lives. In her own words: she wants to ensure that every member who needs support when life shows up will turn to the OBA and find exactly what they need to endure, adapt and thrive. Kelly was a MS Ambassador for MS Society of Canada representing Ontario and Nunavut.  Finally, and most importantly, she is a mom of two and an avid runner.

Ken Mandzuik K.C. is a partner at Tradition Law LLP, Estates and Trusts in Winnipeg, practising exclusively in trust and estate litigation. Since being called to the bar in 1997, his practice has honed-in on several aspects of civil and commercial litigation such as representing survivors of Residential Schools.

Ken is a past president of the CBA’s Manitoba Branch and is still serving as an executive member of the Branch’s Wills Section. He is the former co-chair of the MBA Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee – now Sexual and Gender Diversity Alliance – as well as past chair of the CBA Legislation and Law Reform Committee.

Ken is an active member of the legal community even outside of the CBA. He is an elected bencher of the Law Society of Manitoba as well as the legal member of its Judicial Inquiry Board. He currently serves as an alternate chair of the Criminal Code Review Board of Manitoba and has been director of numerous non or not for profit organizations within the legal profession and beyond.

Loreley Berra Chekay, K.C. is the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer with Saskatchewan Government Insurance where she specializes in advising on risk, good governance and the integration of legal principles within business areas. She is a past president of the CBA’s Saskatchewan Branch where she also sat on the Board of Directors from 2012 to 2021.

Since joining the CBA in 2002, she has been professionally engaged in the Saskatchewan Branch as past chair of both the Criminal South Section and Young Lawyers Section. At a National level, Loreley has been a member of the National Sections Executive Committee, an executive of the Young Lawyers Section and remains an executive of the Criminal Justice National Section.

Loreley has dedicated much of her time to volunteering with over a dozen organizations ranging from sports to public health. She continues to volunteer as a student mentor with the University of Saskatchewan College of Law which she has done for over a decade.

M. Kathleen McManus, K.C., born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is a part-time faculty member at Dalhousie Schulich School of Law where she has taught Crown law since 2002. Her primary areas of practice included: administrative law, employment law, constitutional law and Crown law. She received her Doctorate of Philosophy in Constitutional History from the London School of Economics, London, U.K. in 1992 as a Commonwealth Scholar. In 1995, she received her Bachelor of Law degree from Dalhousie University. Upon completion of her clerkship with Justice Arthur J. Stone at the Federal Court of Appeal, she was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1997 and to the Nova Scotia Bar in 2006. She joined the Department of Justice in Ottawa in 1997 where she practiced as a civil litigator and continued this practice upon her move to the Department of Justice in Halifax.

She has appeared before the superior courts and courts of appeal in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and the Federal Courts, as well as the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In 2022, she was appointed King’s Counsel and appointed as a member to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board. She was a founding member of Chisholm Services for Children, Halifax, was a co-founder of the Crown Law Symposium in 2018, and served as President of the CBA Nova Scotia Branch from 2022-2023.

Robyn Trask is Legal Counsel to the British Columbia Labour Relations Board and Employment Standards Tribunal.  Prior to joining the Board and Tribunal, Robyn was General Counsel for a large public sector union and has represented clients in labour arbitrations, labour board and human rights matters and at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada.  Earlier in her career, Robyn worked with a Toronto litigation firm and completed her articles with a national union.  Robyn has also spent time working with legal organisations in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.  Before joining the CBA Board, Robyn held other positions within the CBA, including Chair of the CBA Sections Subcommittee, Chair of the CBA National Labour and Employment Law Section and Co-Chair of the CBA BC Branch Labour Law Section.  She was also previously President of the Board of Directors for West Coast LEAF.  Robyn holds a B.A. and an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia, and an LL.M. from the University of London.

Shirley Walsh is Senior Legal Counsel with Regulatory at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Her expertise centers around rates and regulatory matters as well as preparing regulatory applications and other filings before the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities.

She has been active in the CBA’s Northwest Territories Branch and was vice president in 2016 and secretary-treasurer in 2015. Outside of the CBA, Shirley has held the role of president in 2010 as well as secretary-treasurer in 2009 with the Law Society of the Northwest Territories.

Suzie Lanthier is a Montreal-based Gowling WLG partner. She practises primarily in the areas of civil and commercial litigation, with a focus on commercial litigation arising out of business operations and contractual arrangements, focusing in the areas of general civil liability, product and manufacturers' liability, environmental liability and in construction and real estate matters.

Suzie's resourcefulness has been a key factor in many major complex litigation files pertaining to manufacturers' and professional sellers' liability, contractual liability, tendering procedures, real estate and insurance matters. Her experience is often sought out in all aspects of civil procedure, including injunctions, order of safeguards and appeals. As a litigator, she acts before the Court of Québec, the Superior Court and the Québec Court of Appeal.

Given her experience in real estate and environmental law, Suzie regularly provides counsel on the drafting of contracts in these practice areas. Her passion for the law prompted her to complete a master's degree in business law during which she received the André-Savoie scholarship for honors in civil law and the Centre du droit des affaires et du commerce international scholarship for honours in business law. Suzie practises law in English and in French.

Tamzin Gillis is currently the Director of Contracting and Legal Counsel at Canada's Ocean Supercluster, an industry-led, national ocean cluster accelerating the development and commercialization of globally relevant ocean solutions.  She served as President of the CBA PEI branch from 2022 to 2023 and as Past Present from 2023 to 2024. From 2017 to 2022, she was In-House Legal Counsel for the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island, the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for Physicians providing care on Prince Edward Island. There she was responsible for negotiating the Physician Master Agreement and representing physicians in individual contract negotiations. For over a decade prior to joining MSPEI, Tamzin was a litigation lawyer with McInnes Cooper, a regional Atlantic Canada firm.  There, she focused on construction, administrative, alternative dispute resolution, labour and employment, and health law, and was published nationally for her work on mechanics’ liens. Tamzin earned her Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from University of New Brunswick and holds a Bachelor of Arts from St. Thomas University.