Coming from Balcarres, Sask., new Estevan Judge Michelle Brass has been practising law for 20 years. Her career took her from Regina to Ottawa, then back to Regina and now to Estevan.
Brass was appointed to Estevan Provincial Court in November 2018, yet she didn’t end up moving to the Energy City until the middle of February.
“I actually just moved this past Friday (Feb. 15), but I’ve been out here, I’ve been coming back and forth for the last couple months,” said Brass.
So far the transition is going well. Surrounded by a supportive staff, Brass is getting to know the community and the main issues Estevan has.
“It’s going really well, I have really good colleagues and I find the private partners very collegial... It’s nice to have a good working relationship with colleagues and with the people here as well,” Brass said.
Brass admitted that never in her life did she think she would live in Estevan, yet she is open to this new experience and is liking the city so far.
Here she will focus on the criminal law, which will give her an opportunity to expand her already vast experience.
“Because my area of law or my practice has been in such different areas, doing now just strictly criminal law I think it’s a huge opportunity to learn a whole new area of law and legal procedures that I didn’t know before or didn’t practise before,” Brass said.
She underlined that while doing her articles, she did Crown prosecution, so she is familiar with the criminal law. Besides, non-stop practice armed her with knowledge and skills allowing to work in various areas.
“My primary focus throughout my career has been crime law, aboriginal law and environmental law,” Brass said.
Brass started her career with the provincial Ministry of Justice, did the articles there and worked in constitutional law for a year. Then she went to Ottawa and worked there for 14 years. After that, Brass came back and worked with the Crown for a year before she opened a private practice, that was operating for about three years.
When Brass got appointed to the Saskatchewan Provincial Court, she had to shut down her firm.
“It was OK. I was a sole practitioner… and it was only open for three years, (so) I didn’t have too many files. I had some large files, so it took a little while to shut it down,” Brass said.
Brass also was trained in mediation and negotiation, and these skills she calls the stronger points in her career. She outlined that having those skills is always beneficial, even though she won’t be applying them directly in Estevan.
“It’s not a part of what I will do (in Estevan), but the skills it takes to actually mediate parties that are opposing each other … It’s good to have mediation skills in the process, but it’s definitely not something I’ll be doing myself,” Brass said.Â
Water law was another area of Brass’ expertise that she perfected while working in Ottawa.
“When I was working in Ottawa I worked with Federal Justice in the Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which is the federal department in INAC (Indigenous and Foreign Affairs Canada). And I was doing specific land claims. And those are claims that Indigenous bands have against Canada for various reasons. I was representing Canada within those claims,” Brass said.
Many of the claims she worked on dealt with flooding issues when Indiginous people challenged the federal government for not compensating them for water damage on their lands. Brass often was a negotiator working with a counterpart trying to resolve an issue.
When Brass came back to Saskatchewan she joined the Water Security Agency, which is a provincial Crown corporation. It may feel that the Prairies shouldn’t have too many water-related problems, yet, according to Brass’ experiences, there was a lot of these kinds of cases.
“Again I dealt with water issues with dams, and flooding, and water quality (in Saskatchewan). All different issues in relation to water,” said Brass.
Brass said that now she is looking forward to working in Estevan and gaining new experience. She also has high expectations for herself and hopes to do the best job she can here.
