822 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 6 NOVEMBER 2021
of the year. Moot practice was always made exciting by fear of Clare’s judgment,
not only for the students, but for Clare’s colleagues and friends who
had unwittingly volunteered to play the roles of witnesses. One’s professional
competence could be called into question if one were seriously
impeached by a second-year law student’s cross-examination (so I hear!).
Indeed, Clare’s normally happy homelife was disrupted for a time when her
husband Alex crumpled under one such student’s questioning.
One of Clare’s former moot students shared an anecdote about Clare that
I think is quite telling. It was the eve of the big competition, and this student
was feeling particularly nervous. She asked Clare if that feeling of nervousness
on the eve of a big trial ever gets better. Clare replied by telling her that
you should never stop getting nervous because those nerves mean you care
and take your responsibility as an advocate seriously. Instead, you simply
get better at managing the stress and anxiety. I think that response tells us
something about who Clare is as an advocate.
CLARE: THE CBABC MEMBER
Clare became involved in the activities of CBABC as an articling student.
Carmen Rogers, who was then a senior Crown in the Victoria office (now a
judge of the B.C. Provincial Court), informed Clare that she would be “volunteering”
for the Law Day Committee. Two or three years later, Clare was
poised to become chair of the Law Day Committee, but the role required
her to be a paid member of CBABC, so she joined. Having joined the CBA,
Clare also signed up for the Victoria Criminal Justice Section, where she
also quickly rose to be the co-chair. From there she started serving on several
CBABC committees and, after being seduced with a combination of
baubles and flattery from Victoria Crown colleagues Paul Pearson and Kimberly
Henders Miller, she ran for, and was elected to, the board of directors
in 2018.
As a member of the CBABC board, Clare has sat on and chaired a number
of committees, and can be seen as the host of the CBA’s video on gender pronouns.
Her move up the executive ladder to her current role began with her
election as second vice-president in 2019.
CLARE: CBABC PRESIDENT
As CBABC president, Clare wants to make sure the organization is at the
forefront of navigating the many changes that are affecting the profession.
This includes being a leading voice in the ongoing changes brought about
by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of which will likely be permanent.