List of Lifetime Members

The guidelines for nominating a Lifetime Member can be found here.

Gillian Crabtree

Gillian began her career in law libraries in 1973 with the Federal Department of Justice, setting up their first library in Vancouver, and retired in 2020, after a 46 year career, which included time with the BC Courthouse Library Society, as a freelance consultant with several law firms, LSBC, a CLE PLTC Instructor and for 21 years with Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP until her retirement.A founding member of VALL, Gillian was also instrumental in forging the relationship between VALL and what is now BCLMA, helping to create the now Knowledge Management subsection. She volunteered for essentially every VALL executive position over the years, including two terms as Vice President, President & Past President, Treasurer, and the Programs Committee. Gillian is also the original editor of the BC Legislative Digest, now published by Quickscribe, and was unfailingly available to fellow VALL members when particularly tricky legislative questions required a consult; Gillian was, and continues to be, a wonderful mentor for our VALL community.

Susan Daly

Susan Daly Hauschildt began her career as a library assistant at McGill Law Library 1971-75, and obtained her MLS from UBC SLAIS in 1976. After a year with the Courthouse Library in Vancouver, her two long term positions were as Library Manager with Bull Housser Tupper (1977-1989) and with Alexander Holburn (1994-2011) retiring in October 2011. She had a brief stint in between with Legal Services and Lang Michener, for an overall career in law libraries of 35 years.

Susan was a founding member of VALL, served as Review Editor in 2001-2003, contributing many articles, and was Secretary 2005-2006. As a proficient legal researcher, she was the “go-to” reference librarian for colleagues. Being creative in her solutions, she has always been a huge support to law firm librarians and VALL generally. She was an active CALL member as well, and recognized the importance of both the local and national associations, and the many contacts they provided as critical for sustaining our individual work.

Judy Deavy

Judy retired from the Department of Justice on Feb. 27, 2013. She was the Library Manager at the Department of Justice BC Regional Library from 1980-2013. Over time, the office grew from a 60 lawyer firm to a 300 lawyer firm. The library’s physical size grew from 6,000 to 20,000 books.

When VALL formed in 1989, Judy was quick to become a member. Judy’s volunteer work included VALL Membership Chair in 1991-92 an d1997-98. Judy was the go-to person for government-related questions for many VALL members over the years.

In addition to reference and the adminstrative work of running the library, Judy endured 8 library moves, 11 bosses and 2 floods! Judy oversaw the migration of the BC Region Justice library holdings from an old In-Magic Catatogue to the new national Justice Integrated Library System Millennium.

Most importantly, Judy always made time for her staff, lawyers, article students, support staff and law library colleagues, to pass on many intricacies of legal research to us to encourage us, to mentor us and to always remind us, “there are no silly questions!’. With her excellent memory and vast knowledge, Judy contributed much to law librarianship.

Teresa Gleave

Teresa received her MLIS from Dalhousie and first worked as a law librarian in Halifax. In the early 1990’s she moved to the west coast and started working at what was then Borden Ladner. After some time there she moved on to Farris, and then Russell & Dumoulin in January 1998, which became Fasken.

Over the years Teresa has volunteered her time with VALL and has held numerous positions within the organization including two terms as VALL President. From 1991-1993 she was Review Editor; President from 2001-2002; and Past President 2002-2003; from 2005-2007 she was involved with Membership; and finished her career as Vice President from 2016-2017; President 2017-2018; and Past President 2018-2019.

In addition to her work with VALL, Teresa was involved within the broader law libraries community. She was Treasurer of CALL for a term. She taught the Legal Bibliography course at SLAIS from 2002 through 2006, and then taught the Legal Research course through the UBC Faculty of Law from 2010-2013. Teresa authored legal research courses with the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC, and was a contributor to the 6th edition of the Legal Research Handbook. In 2021 she was awarded the Denis Marshall Memorial award for excellence in Law Librarianship from the Canadian Association of Law Libraries.

She retired from her role as Senior Director of Knowledge Services at Fasken’s in 2020.

Gwendoline Hoar

Gwendoline Hoar was the Library Manager at Lawson Lundell for over thirty-two years. She was one of the founding members of VALL and served on the VALL executive as President, as Treasurer and as a member of the Programs Committee.

She is also the author of several articles for the VALL Review including “Before the Flood: How it was when VALL began” and “Autres Temps, Autres Moeurs” (on library moves).

Wendy Holmes

Wendy Holmes began her library career at the federal Department of Fisheries Library. She joined Davis & Company (as it then was) in 1982. In 2009, after Joan Mulholland retired, she took over as Manager of Library Services at Davis LLP. Wendy retired in January 2014, after working over 30 years at Davis. During this time she was an active member of VALL, serving on the Executive as Treasurer from 1996 to 1998 and again from 2009 to 2012. She also served as a member of CCH’s Customer Advisory Board.

Anne Ikeda

Anne worked at Lang, Michener, Lawrence & Shaw, now McMillan LLP, until her retirement in 2010, steering her library through the inevitable changes, including a significant premises move, during which time she contributed an insightful and entertaining article for the VALL Review.

Anne was an early member of VALL, serving as Membership secretary in 1990, as Treasurer, and as a member of the original Peter Bark Committee in 1993. Anne was also the VALL keymaster for many years, diligently keeping watch over the VALL P.O. Box in Bentall Centre.

Karen Kerfoot

Karen Kerfoot (formerly Imeson) retired from The Continuing Legal Education Society of BC after an amazing 40-year career in the law-publishing business. Karen and CLE BC have been long-time supporters of the Vancouver law library community, and regular participants at VALL events over the years. Karen served as VALL’s Review Editor in 1989-1990 and Secretary from 1993 to 1995.

Elizabeth Kinersly

Elizabeth was called to the BC Bar in 1987 after articling at Campney & Murphy in Vancouver.

Elizabeth joined VALL in 1989 as a student member before entering library school at UBC. After she graduated in 1992, she joined Swinton & Company, now Miller Thomson, and remained there for her whole career.

Elizabeth has been active in the law library community and has served on the VALL Executive in a number of positions over a twenty-year span including Programs 1990 – 1994 and Vice President / President / Past President  2009 – 2012. She has also been a long time member of CALL/ACBD and participated in the Ottawa conference in 2007.

Now that Elizabeth has more time for herself, she and her husband are doing some travelling and tackling some home renovations

Wilma Macfarlane

After Library School at the University of Strathclyde, Wilma Macfarlane began her career as a librarian at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, Scotland. On arrival in British Columbia, Wilma worked on the Reference Desk at Richmond Public Library. Seven years later a move to Alberta and contracts at Dome Petroleum and Keyano College, piqued an interest in the energy sector and an abiding passion for the world of commerce. The daily price of oil is still on Wilma’s radar.

On returning to Vancouver in 1988, a whole new chapter began. Farris, Vaughan, Wills, and Murphy, LLP and a leap into the law firm sector came next. Joining VALL was the obvious choice of professional association, and here Wilma found her feet in the law library community. A very enjoyable year on the Program Committee, then later, the three-year commitment around President, cemented her involvement.

Now that the hectic law firm days are a thing of the past, Wilma spends her time traveling, sailing and reading fiction, with a little business research for good measure. This is her perfect work-life balance.

Favourite quote is: “you win cases in the library, not in the courtroom”.

Lynda Mitchell

Lynda Mitchell combined a lifetime of volunteer work with an interesting and varied career in the medical, business and legal worlds. Her career culminated at Mawhinney & Kellough, now Fraser Milner Casgrain, where she worked for 23 years until her retirement in 2010, having managed to survive four library renovations. She was a member of VALL for many of those years, serving on the Executive on three different occasions as a member of the Programme Committee. She also was a member of CALL and spent one year on their Publishers’ Liaison Committee.

Joan Mulholland

Joan Mulholland was the Library manager for Davis & Company, now DLA Piper LLP, from the start of her career in the mid-1970s until her retirement in 2009. In March of 1988, Joan hosted the first exploratory VALL meeting for over 40 enthusiastic law library community members. A founding member of VALL, Joan remained a dedicated supporter throughout her career, contributing articles to the VALL Review and serving as Treasurer from 2000-2002.

Sarah Munro

Sarah retired from Singelton Urquhart in June 2016. During her distinguished career as a law librarian, Sarah served on the VALL executive, in the three-year President role from 2011-2014 and as secretary in 1997-1998. She has also been an active member of CALL and was a session moderator at the 2002 CALL conference. Sarah’s professional involvement also extended to memberships in the Special Libraries Association, Westcoast LEAF, and BC Legal Management Association. Sarah was an adjunct professor at SLAIS, the iSchool@UBC, team-teaching the law libraries course.

Before joining Singleton Urquhart as the firm’s librarian in 2008, Sarah was with the Courthouse Libraries BC for many years, as a reference librarian and as the collections librarian.

Liisa Tella

Liisa Tella began her library career at VPL after graduating from UBC with a degree in French language. She returned to UBC to earn her MLS. Liisa’s first job after graduating was at Kwantlen College, then the Universities Council. In 1986 she got her start in law libraries working for Shrum Law. In 1989 she moved over to Harper Grey Easton and Co, to manage their fledgling library, where she helped build the foundations of what made the firm a success. She retired from Harper Grey LLP in 2016. Liisa was one of the first members of VALL, and went on to become Membership Secretary and Newsletter editor over the years.

Sandra Varga

Sandra started her career in law libraries at the British Columbia Judges Library in 1981. She left the Judges Library to raise her family whilst running a pub, an experience that served her well when she returned to the world of law libraries. Sandy was noted for remaining calm and unflappable no matter what was happening in the library. In 2005  Sandy joined Davis & Company (which would later become DLA Piper) working alongside Joan Mulholland and Wendy Holmes. As senior Library Technician at DLA Piper, she mentored a number of new library professionals. She retired in 2017.

Jane Wells

Jane obtained her MLS from UBC in 1977, started at the B.C. Courthouse Library, moved to Lawson Lundell in 1977 and then to Vancouver Island to start her own company, Law Library Consulting Services.  She contracted with three firms in Victoria and Nanaimo; and then Lawrence & Shaw and Macrae Montgomery in Vancouver.  In 1988 she spent two years at a law firm in Hobart, Tasmania.  Work at the Legal Services Society of B.C. in Vancouver followed from 1990-1999. Here she prepared the report “The History of Legal Aid Recipients in B.C.”, wrote “So you want to be a law librarian”, and helped revise the “Law Line Reference and Referral Manual”.  In 2000, Jane returned to the B.C. Courthouse Library; joined the UBC Law Library in 2001; then Singleton Urquhart in 2002, where she worked until her retirement in 2006. She has one of the more varied and interesting careers of the law librarians in Vancouver.

Jane was a founding member of VALL, Editor of the VALL Review from 1993-1994, and served as President and Past President from 1999-2001.  She participated on many committees including work to develop written recommendations to the Legislative Committee regarding the Table of Legislative Changes, and was a member of the VALL/BC Courthouse Library Society Work Exchange, a program that served to enhance relations and information sharing between private firms and the Courthouse libraries.  Jane was also an avid CALL member.