2017 WILL AWARD WINNERS

Leadership in the Profession (Private Practice) – Sandra Corbett, K.C.

Leadership in the Profession (Private Practice) – Patricia P. Sealy, K.C.

Leadership in the Profession (In-House) – Michelle Plouffe

Leadership in the Profession (Government) – Shaina Leonard

Leadership in the Profession (Broader Roles) – Kathleen A. Ryan, K.C.

Leadership in the Community – Sarah King-D’Souza, K.C.

Tomorrow’s Leader – Kara Levis

Law Firm Award – Dunphy Best Blocksom LLP

2017 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER
THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE PATRICIA A. ROWBOTHAM

The Honourable Patricia Rowbotham is a justice of the Courts of Appeal of Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Over her 34 year legal career she has been a practising lawyer, a law professor, a trial judge and an appellate judge. Justice Rowbotham is a graduate of the University of Calgary (Bachelor of Education 1976, LLB 1981). She also holds an LLM from Cambridge University (1984). Justice Rowbotham was called to the Bar of Alberta in 1983 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1996.

As a student in a newly established law faculty, Justice Rowbotham was fortunate to be the first graduate to achieve a number of professional successes: the first graduate to clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada (Mr. Justice Ronald Martland and Madam Justice Bertha Wilson); to join the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary as a full-time faculty member (1990 to 1999); and the first faculty member to serve as an elected Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta (1996 to 1999). She was the first graduate to be appointed to a superior court in Canada (1999) and the first graduate to be appointed to an appellate court (2007). In 2006, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the University of Calgary, Justice Rowbotham was named one of its top 40 alumni. She is the recipient of the University of Calgary Alumni Association 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Justice Rowbotham’s background as a civil litigator (1984 to 1990 – Fenerty Robertson Fraser and Hatch (Dentons LLP and Blake Cassels and Graydon)) and the variety of courses which she taught at the Faculty of Law (Civil Procedure, Evidence, Torts, Trial Advocacy, Wills, Oil and Gas Law, and Professional Responsibility) provided her with a valuable base of knowledge and experience for her role as a jurist. Justice Rowbotham is bilingual and has presided over complex constitutional law appeals argued in French in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Justice Rowbotham takes great pride in the accomplishments of her former law students and articling students. Her greatest source of pride is her three children, Charlotte, Anne and Michael Stokes.