Alberta Lawyers
LASA 47-G-11
1899: Frederick W.G. Haultain
Frontier lawyers played a huge role in gaining province-hood for Alberta in 1905. Probably nobody is more connected to the history of our inauguration as a province than lawyer Frederick William Alpin Gordon Haultain. Elected in 1888, Haultain served as Calgary’s representative in the first legislative assembly of the North-West Territories (NWT) and served as premier from 1897-1905. He played the leading role in the struggle for responsible government and raised the Territories from colonial to provincial status within the Dominion.
LASA 69-G-1
1900: Charles W. Cross, K.C.
Cross was elected to the provincial legislature in 1905 and appointed Alberta’s first attorney general by Premier A.C. Rutherford. As attorney general he was involved in the financing controversy of the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Company that precipitated the resignation of Premier Rutherford in 1910.
LASA 53-G-4
1905: J.C.F. Bown, pioneer lawyer
LASA 2003-031.1
1915: Calgary Bench and Bar, Palliser Hotel
LASA 75-G-1
1918: Harry Friedman and Moses I. Lieberman, partners in law
LASA 51-G-1
1919: John W. McDonald, appointment as King’s Counsel
LASA 2006-002
1920: Sir James A. Lougheed, KC, 1854-1925
First member entered on the roll of the Law Society of Alberta. The Honourable James Alexander Lougheed, K.C. was born in Brampton, Ontario on September 1, 1854. After studying law, he gained admission to the Bar of Upper Canada and was made a Queen’s Counsellor. He was engaged in the practice of law in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Medicine Hat before his arrival in Calgary in 1883. In Calgary he became a land agent for the CPR and Hudson’s Bay Company, and among his many achievements he helped found the Law Society of Alberta. Lougheed was able to add “Sir” to his name after being knighted by King George V – the only Albertan at the time to have entered the peerage. Lougheed was a minister without portfolio in Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden’s government. This was preceded by his election to the Canadian senate and appointment as leader of the Conservative Party. His distinction as a lawyer and relation to the Hardisty family through his marriage to Isabella Hardisty (daughter of Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company William Hardisty) led to his 1889 Senate appointment at age 35 distinguishing him as the youngest person in the chamber. He died in Ottawa in 1925.
LASA 2003-002
1930: Arthur L. Smith, K.C
A.L. Smith was a formidable criminal trial lawyer who was nationally respected. During a courtroom skirmish, no one could better articulate and apply the rules of evidence, practice and procedure. During his career, A.L. Smith was associated with many of Alberta’s great law cases including Powlett vs. University of Alberta (hazing case), Solloway & Mills (bucket shop brokerage house bust), The Corona Hotel fire, and MacMillan vs. Brownlee.
LASA 5-G-82
1932: Canadian Bar Association meeting, Banff
LASA 66-G-1
1938: The Right Honourable Viscount Richard B. Bennett, 11th Prime Minister of Canada
Conservative leader R.B. Bennett was the first Albertan elected Prime Minister in the summer of 1930, at a time when many believed the Depression would soon pass. The election promises that he could not keep would haunt him and eventually bring about his defeat in 1935. Nationally Bennett became known as the father of the Canadian welfare state.
LASA 62-G-9
1940, May 31: Edmonton Legal Discussion Club Annual Dinner
Back row: Malcolm MacLeod, A. Frazer Duncan, George J. Bryan, George L. Parney, Hugh John Macdonald, Wilbur F. Bowker, Howard Emery, Bruce Massie, A. Blair Paterson, William Auxier, Louis D. Hyndman, James D. Wallbridge, and Ronald Martland.
Middle row: Stanley H. McCuaig, Wallace F. H. Mason (Deputy Clerk of the Court), Alex T. Kinnaird (Registrar, NALRD), Cliff Purvis, R. P. Wallace (Clerk of the Court, Edmonton), Dean J. A. Weir, L.Y. Cairns, Gilbert M. Blackstock, Lucien Maynard, J. Boyd McBride, H. J. Wilson, W. E. Simpson, unknown, and A. J. Jackson.
Front row: E. W. S. Kane, Don Mackenzie, Bruce Whittaker, Frank Layton, Harold Hawe, Abe Miller, J. N. McDonald, Greg Thom, D. W. Cobbledick, and S. Bruce Smith.
LASA 2009-004
1944: Leonard Brockington, K.C.
LASA 2012-010.4
1946: The Honourable David Clifton Prowse, Q.C. (1920-1988)
Born and raised in Taber Alberta to lawyer J. Harper Prowse and his wife Elizabeth, one of six children, many of whom went on to practise law. Clif Prowse married Edythe Virtue, daughter of A.G. Virtue, early Lethbridge Lawyer. Together they had four children, three of whom practise law.
LASA 2012-010.5
1946: Uniting of two Lethbridge legal dynasty’s
LASA 2006-015
1958: Neil D. Maclean, K.C.
Some of Neil Maclean’s high profile clients included Vernon Booher, Madam Fontaine, Cora McPherson and Vivian MacMillan. A dedicated Liberal, Maclean was known for his thorough grasp of law, fierce loyalty to his clients, and for fighting with courage. He was one of the greatest counsels the West has ever seen.
LASA 70-G-2
1960: Members of the Northwest Territories Bar Association
LASA 1-G-11
1963: Merv Leitch and Peter Lougheed at CBA Conference
LASA 13-G-17
1966: Calgary John Howard Society
LASA 21-G-14
1968: John J. Saucier, Q.C.
