THE ADVOCATE 271
VOL. 80 PART 2 MARCH 2022
William Joseph Worrall, Q.C.
Bill Worrall, Q.C., was a complete lawyer in all
respects. From his call and admission as a lawyer in
1956 to his death on July 24, 2021, he was an avid student
and exemplary practitioner of the law.
Born in Vancouver on December 14, 1932, Bill
grew up in Kerrisdale with his mother and sister. He
graduated from Magee High School. Bill went on to
UBC and graduated from UBC law school in 1955 as
the gold medallist. Bill and Laura Margaret James married in 1956 and,
together, they had three boys. Bill was an active recreational skier, swimmer
and tennis player. Following completion of articles, Bill joined the preeminent
securities law firm at that time: Shulman, Tupper & Co. At that time,
securities law had not developed to the status it now enjoys. It was a facet
of company law. Under the tutelage of senior partner Ike Shulman, who
developed numerous successful mines in his career, Bill guided many public
companies through inception as junior explorers to producing mines,
providing advice on property acquisitions, finance and development.
Bill soon became a partner at Shulman, Tupper, which was a diverse
group of specialized lawyers: Shulman, Bill and Carl Jonsson in corporate
securities; Tom Berger and John Laxton in labour and Aboriginal law; and
Harold Tupper in family law. Bill developed an impressive client base of
public companies active in the oil and gas and mining industries and also
was a principal of a number of exploration companies that developed mineral
properties into mines. Many of the mines, still operational today in
British Columbia, had Bill as their solicitor in their development stages. As
a co-founder and principal of Stampede International Resources Ltd., he
guided the company through finance and development of the largest (at
that time) natural gas field in Canada, the Strachan and Ricinus Gas Fields.
In 1970, Bill was the founding partner of a new law firm specializing in
corporate, securities and finance of junior exploration companies. Together
with Lawrence Page, Q.C., he built Worrall, Page and Co. into a law firm specializing
in all aspects of legal services required by junior public companies
developing mineral properties as well as oil and gas properties. The firm,
with the addition of George Scott in 1981, became Worrall Scott and Page, a
specialist firm for junior explorers requiring legal and financial advice in
their development from explorationists to producers. Following Worrall
Scott and Page’s reorganization, Bill practised law in an association with Jef-