Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge hosts bar call for student-at-law

In a bold departure from recent convention, the Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law was transformed into a courtroom on June 15, as Hero Laird, ‘22 JD, was called to the bar with a blend of legal traditions.

“The lodge is a space created to honour and uphold Indigenous law, and also work in a multi-juridical Canadian legal framework,” says Laird, who completed their articles at the lodge. “Having a bar call here seemed like a good way to honour that upholding of law while also finding a place in it as a non-Indigenous person.”

Transforming the lodge into a courtroom is representative of its  missions, says Koren Lightning-Earle, '07 LLB, the legal director of the lodge, who also served as Laird’s principal during their articles.

“We really believe law can be done differently, and that is what we promote at the lodge. It is what we embody. It is about the whole person,” she says. 

It is exceptionally rare for a bar call to occur outside courthouses in Alberta, and it is a first for the ceremony to take place in the Law Centre. 

Laird was inspired by Indigenous lawyers who have been called to the bar in their home nations, including the Honourable Leonard (Tony) Mandamin, '82 LLB, and Lightning-Earle. For Laird, hosting the bar call in the lodge was an act of honouring and practising Indigenous legal traditions while also upholding British-Canadian ones. 

“While it is new in some ways, in others, it is a return to legal traditions like wahkohtowin that have strength and place in a multi-juridical country,” says Laird.

“Hero has embraced two eyed seeing and does and can practice Indigenous Law with respect and understanding. They do so with the same rigor as with the common Law,” says Lightning-Earle. 

The ceremony required special permission from the presiding judge, Justice Renée Cochard, ’78 LLB, a supernumerary justice of the Alberta Court of Justice.

Cochard is no stranger to doing law differently. She was a founding member of the Edmonton Indigenous Court in 2021 and the Edmonton Mental Health Court in 2018. Those specialty courts have transformed how individuals experience the law.

The bar call began with a prayer by Mosom Rick Lightning. 

“Imagine if every courtroom could feel like this bar call, what the effect would be,” Laird says. “Law can feel good. Law can feel hopeful. There are hard things in law, we can’t look away from the hard things, but we can approach them in a way that is full of humanity and treat each other with love and respect.”

During the reception, Laird was honoured with a blanket by Lightning-Earle and Associate Professor Hadley Freidland, co-founder and academic director of the lodge. “This is our version of the robe,” she says.

Laird’s ceremony was also an opportunity to reflect on the generations of legal giants who have paved the way for others to uphold Indigenous laws. Lightning-Earle’s principal, Eileen Sasakamoose, was in attendance, alongside Mandamin, who served as Sasakamoose’s principal and is the lodge’s scholar in residence. The lodge’s first articling student, Sarah Kriekle, ‘21 JD, was also joined by Gavin Cazon-Wilkes, ‘23 JD, and Casey Caines, ‘23 JD, who will began their articles at the lodge on June 1.

Laird will be continuing at the lodge as a senior researcher and beginning their LLM at the University of Alberta this fall under the supervision of Friedland.