Sarah practices Aboriginal and constitutional law, providing her services exclusively to other lawyers. She received a B.A. from Stanford University in 1990, an LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1994, and an LL.M. from the University of British Columbia in 2018. She was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1995.
Sarah has over 25 years of experience practicing law in British Columbia and has engaged with Indigenous legal issues from all sides. She has worked in private practice and in government, as a civil litigator and within the Specific Claims Policy process. From her call to the B.C. Bar in 1995 until 2003, Sarah practiced as a litigator with Davis & Company and Hunter Voith. A selected list of cases in which Sarah has acted as counsel is available here. From 2003 to 2009, Sarah was litigation counsel with the Aboriginal Litigation group at the federal Department of Justice. From 2009 to 2018, Sarah practiced with the Specific Claims Legal Services Unit of the Department of Justice, conducting historical research, writing opinions, and advising on First Nations' British Columbia specific claims, with a focus on historical claims to land.
Since 2018, Sarah has been a sole practitioner in Vancouver, advising and working with other lawyers and law firms, primarily those with Indigenous clients and principally in relation to British Columbia Aboriginal title litigation or specific claims.
Sarah has over 25 years of experience practicing law in British Columbia and has engaged with Indigenous legal issues from all sides. She has worked in private practice and in government, as a civil litigator and within the Specific Claims Policy process. From her call to the B.C. Bar in 1995 until 2003, Sarah practiced as a litigator with Davis & Company and Hunter Voith. A selected list of cases in which Sarah has acted as counsel is available here. From 2003 to 2009, Sarah was litigation counsel with the Aboriginal Litigation group at the federal Department of Justice. From 2009 to 2018, Sarah practiced with the Specific Claims Legal Services Unit of the Department of Justice, conducting historical research, writing opinions, and advising on First Nations' British Columbia specific claims, with a focus on historical claims to land.
Since 2018, Sarah has been a sole practitioner in Vancouver, advising and working with other lawyers and law firms, primarily those with Indigenous clients and principally in relation to British Columbia Aboriginal title litigation or specific claims.
Sarah is also a legal historian whose study focusses on the intersection of land, Indigenous occupation and ownership of land, and settler law about land and Indigenous peoples.
In support of her graduate studies at UBC, Sarah was awarded the Law Society of British Columbia Scholarship for Graduate Legal Studies (2016) and the U.B.C. Allard School of Law History Project LL.M. Scholarship (2016). Her thesis, Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, British Columbia Indian Reserve Commissioner (1876-1880), and the "Humanitarian Civilizing" of Indigenous Peoples, analyzes Sproat's Indian reserve-creation policies and, among other things, their relationship to "Indian title." UBC awarded Sarah the Dean of the Peter A. Allard School of Law LL.M. Prize for her LL.M. thesis and studies.
Sarah is an author on legal-historical issues related to Indigenous interests in land:
In support of her graduate studies at UBC, Sarah was awarded the Law Society of British Columbia Scholarship for Graduate Legal Studies (2016) and the U.B.C. Allard School of Law History Project LL.M. Scholarship (2016). Her thesis, Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, British Columbia Indian Reserve Commissioner (1876-1880), and the "Humanitarian Civilizing" of Indigenous Peoples, analyzes Sproat's Indian reserve-creation policies and, among other things, their relationship to "Indian title." UBC awarded Sarah the Dean of the Peter A. Allard School of Law LL.M. Prize for her LL.M. thesis and studies.
Sarah is an author on legal-historical issues related to Indigenous interests in land:
- In 2022, Sarah published a two-part article on the treatment of terra nullius in Canadian law in The Advocate, a magazine for B.C. lawyers and legal scholars published by the Vancouver Bar Association.
- In 2021, Sarah authored a chapter in To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia (UBC Press, 2021). Sarah's chapter examines Governor Douglas's pre-emption and Indian reserve systems in the Colony of British Columbia and how probing his intention for his "land system" can inform our understanding of why Douglas did not pursue treaties in the mainland Colony. Sarah first presented this chapter as a paper at a joint UVic/Songhees conference in February 2017 entitled, "First Nations, Land, and James Douglas: Indigenous and Treaty Rights in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1849-1864".
- In May 2019, Sarah reviewed Jim Reynolds' book, Aboriginal Peoples and the Law: A Critical Introduction (2018), for the London School of Economics Review of Books.
- In March 2018 (continuing to date), Sarah became the author of the chapter, "The Crown as a Fiduciary," in Government Liability: Law and Practice (eds. Karen Horsman and Gareth Morley), Thomson Reuters (looseleaf).
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