Just Works: Lawyers in Alberta 1907-2007

As the Law Society of Alberta celebrates its centennial, it salutes the pioneers, philosophers, soldiers, educators and raconteurs who helped shape the province through a common bond – love of the law. Alberta lawyers have lived it all in pursuit of their craft, from frontier privations, to the heady days of the oil boom. With the birth in 1907 of the Law Society of Alberta (LSA), lawyers became members of an extended family often quarrelsome and jealous, yet equally embracing and nurturing.

Leafing through the pages of this family album you’ll notice that values haven’t much changed; integrity, discipline, diligence and honesty are as important today as they were 100 years ago. So is humour, in liberal (small!) doses. What is remarkable in these stories about lawyers and the legal institutions they serve are the threads that connect the past to the present, and will most certainly continue into the future.

The volunteers who assembled this book came together in 2005. Every member experienced major career or life transitions during the months it took to put this book together, but we prevailed. We are (alphabetically): Everett Bunnell, Shelagh R. Creagh, Adam Germain, Stacy Kaufeld, Michael Payne, Laura Stevens, and Jack Watson. We are also grateful for the participation of Kirsten Olson and Graham Price, and the generous participation of contributing writers, acknowledged at the end of the book, notably eminent professors Lou Knafla and Peter W. Hogg, and legendary commentator C.D. Evans.

We invite you to treat the contents of this book as representative, and sometime symbolic, of the contributions made by the law, lawyers and legal institutions to Alberta and our nation. This is merely an overview of a grand sweep of time and space. We hope you enjoy the product of our collective efforts.