Barbara has over 20 years of experience advising clients on estate and trust planning, incapacity planning, business succession, and estate and trust administration matters.

Barbara assists clients by crafting estate plans that meet their unique circumstances and goals and include the preparation of wills, power of attorney, representation agreements for health care, and alter ego, joint partner and family trusts.

Barbara also advises executors, administrators, trustees and beneficiaries regarding estate and trust administration matters.  She has extensive experience in all areas of estate administration, including informing executors, administrators and trustees of their duties and powers and beneficiaries of their rights, and obtaining and resealing grants of probate and administration.  She frequently deals with multi-jurisdictional issues such as foreign assets, non-Canadian beneficiaries and conflicts of law, and with complex assets including digital assets and business interests.

Barbara has developed her knowledge and skills in private practice, working for a large Canadian financial institution where she prepared estate plans for the high-net-worth clients of the bank, and in-house with the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.

Barbara is a past Chair of the Vancouver Branch of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (“STEP”).  She has been recognized by Lexpert as repeatedly recommended in the area of Estate and Tax Planning.  She was also part of the team that received the 2016 STEP Global Private Client Legal Team of the Year (midsize firm) award.  She was recognized in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in Canada™ for her work in Trusts and Estates.  Barbara first received this recognition in 2017.

Presentations

• Appointed to the Working Committee of the ULCC Access to Digital Assets by Fiduciaries Project.  We completed the draft Uniform Access to Digital Assets by Fiduciaries Act in June, 2016.  Our report and the draft legislation were accepted by the ULCC in August, 2016 and they determined it should be adopted and recommended to jurisdictions for enactment.  In 2020, it was enacted in Saskatchewan as The Fiduciaries Access to Digital Information Act.
• Presenter, “Probate Fee Planning” at the biannual Estate Planning Insights joint conference held by the Chartered Professional Accountants BC and STEP, Vancouver Branch on October 26, 2021
• Presenter, “Conflict of Laws in Estate Planning: An Estate Planning Case Study and An Estate Administration Case Study; Each Intertwining Three Different Jurisdictions”, National Seminar held by STEP on March 24, 2021.
• Presenter, “Current Issues in Estate Planning” at the Chartered Professional Accountants BC seminar on May 12, 2018.
• Presenter, “Why did I agree to do this” vs. “Where’s my money” held by the Fraser Valley Estate Planning Council on March 6, 2018.
• Presenter, “Decision Making Basics: The Building Blocks” at the Essential Tools for Disability Planning and Practice program held by the Pacific Business and Law Institute on April 12, 2016.
• Co-Chair and Presenter at the Most Litigated Estates Issues: Proactive and Reactive Solutions program held by the Pacific Business and Law Institute on September 29, 2015.
• Presenter, “Digital Property and Who Owns it?” at the Advocis 2014 Estate and Financial Planning Conference held on October 29, 2014.
• Presenter, “Digital Assets and Death” live webinar hosted by the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC and broadcast on September 23, 2014.
• Moderator, “Enduring Powers of Attorney: A Necessary Evil” session at the 16th National STEP Canada Conference on June 16, 2014.

Bar Admissions

British Columbia, 2006
Alberta, 1994

Education

LL.B., University of Calgary, 1993

Memberships and Affiliations

Member, Law Society of British Columbia
Member, Canadian Bar Association, Wills and Trusts Section, Women Lawyers Forum, Vancouver Branch
Member, STEP