THE ADVOCATE 243
VOL. 80 PART 2 MARCH 2022
TRU LAW
FACULTY NEWS
By Daleen Millard*
TRU LAW SUPPORTERS FUND NEW STUDENT BURSARY
Rob McDiarmid, Q.C., and Justice Sharon Matthews, long-time supporters
of and donors to TRU Law, have made another generous contribution of
$50,000 to fund a new yearly bursary for students. The idea arose following
the Kamloops Bar Association’s decision to use some of the proceeds from
Master McDiarmid’s retirement dinner to fund a one-time bursary.
Available for the first time this fall, the McDiarmid Law Bursary will be
awarded annually to first-year J.D. students. The donors hope to support
students from smaller communities in the B.C. Interior—the Yale, Cariboo,
Kootenay and Prince Rupert judicial districts—so these areas can retain
more lawyers. “Some communities in this province desperately need
lawyers, and you can make a good living there,” McDiarmid said. “There are
lots of places that don’t have enough lawyers, and there are some that probably
have too many. The intent of the law school was to encourage young
lawyers to set down roots in places other than the major cities.”
McDiarmid was among a group of Kamloops lawyers who sought provincial
government approval for TRU Law, a program designed to produce
practising lawyers serving smaller, up-country centres.
TRU Law welcomed its first cohort of 75 students in 2011 as Canada’s
newest law faculty in more than 33 years. The donors believe it has stayed
true to its mandate and students who reside or study in smaller cities are
more likely to settle down in one. “The vast majority of articling students in
Kamloops are from TRU, and a lot of them stay,” McDiarmid said. “The
experience before was that you’d hire students and you had about a fifty per
cent retention rate. You’d see a substantial number leave. We’ve been able
to turn that around a bit.”
* Daleen Millard is the dean of TRU Law. Read more about her in “On the Front Cover” starting on page 179 of this issue.