From a young age, Melinda was actively involved in a family business in Ontario. Upon moving to British Columbia, she worked in different businesses until she decided to further her education and attend law school.  She is now an experienced trial lawyer and works on matters including family law, personal injury, insurance, commercial, estate and real estate litigation.

Her personal injury clients are well-served by her undergraduate studies in bio-medicine at the University of Waterloo. This provides her with a clearer understanding of medical matters related to her clients’ personal injuries, which range from minor whiplash to severe injuries, including brain injuries, quadriplegia and wrongful death. Her medical knowledge empowers her to analyze medical reports and negotiate fair settlements for the benefit for her clients.

As a family law lawyer and a Collaborative Divorce lawyer, Melinda assists and guides her clients with cohabitation agreements, obtaining a divorce, separation agreements, and dealing with matters of guardianship, parenting, contact, and spousal and child support.  She assists her clients to select the most desirable process, whether it be by way of collaborative family law, mediation or litigation, in order to obtain the most cost effective and least destructive solution for her family law clients.

Melinda has successfully appeared in court on numerous occasions and is always prepared to take a matter to trial for her clients.  As a trained mediator, she has also had considerable success in negotiating good settlements on behalf of her clients.

• Melinda has assisted a number of clients to achieve resolutions of their family law cases by use of the Collaborative Family Law Process. The former spouses left the process with the ability to cooperatively continue to work together for the sake of their children.
• Melinda has assisted in the preparation of Marriage Agreements and Pre-nuptial Agreements.
• In a case where there was a risk of abduction of children, Melinda successfully obtained a court order ordering the mother to give up possession of the passports, and Melinda took steps to ensure that the passports were secured by use of police force as necessary and that no further passports could be obtained by her.
• Melinda assisted a client through the court process to obtain an order for the sale and partition (distribution of proceeds) of a property owned by the client and his former partner.
• In an estate litigation matter, Melinda was successful in convincing a Supreme Court of BC Judge that a Will made by her client’s late father ought to be amended from a bequest of only $ 15,000 to a bequest of $250,000. The Will left her client, an adult independent child of the deceased, just $ 15,000, and it left the majority of the estate to the deceased’s second wife. Melinda argued that the deceased’s moral obligation to his daughter was not fulfilled and that the Will ought to be varied pursuant to the Wills Variation Act to provide her client with a larger share of the estate.
  The second wife argued that the moral obligation was met because, she said, there was a period of estrangement between the client and the deceased. Melinda successfully argued that, if there was a period of estrangement, the fault for that estrangement was not that of the client. As a result of this success at trial, the Court also ordered that the Plaintiff be awarded all her costs in having to bring this law suit.
• Melinda has settled a number of personal injury ICBC claims arising from motor vehicle accidents on behalf of her clients so as to allow her clients to be compensated fairly for their injuries, without the stress of attending trial.
• Melinda has represented personal injury clients through to the end of trial if the settlement offer of ICBC is not adequate, and she has been successful in obtaining awards in excess of the previous ICBC offer.
• Melinda recently was successful in defending a law suit in the Supreme Court of BC on behalf of three separate sets of defendants who had been sued by a plaintiff for personal injuries arising from motor vehicle accidents. Melinda achieved a dismissal on behalf of two sets of defendants and kept the award against the third defendant to only a nominal amount.

• Member, Law Society of British Columbia
• Called to the Law Society of Upper Canada
• Member, Canadian Bar Association of British Columbia
• Co-Chair of the Women Lawyer’s Forum of the Canadian Bar Association of British Columbia
• Member, Patients Relations Committee for the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia
• Member of the Discipline Committee for the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia
• Mentor with the Women Lawyer Forum with the CBA (BC)

• Guest Instructor for the B.C. PLTC (Professional Legal Training Course)
• Past Guest Instructor for UBC Law Student Mock Trials
• Guest Speaker at the 2011 Ten Hot Hit Tips from Ten Hot Mentors event, put on by the CBABC WLF

• Sat as Chair or panel member on a number of discipline hearings for the college of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia.
• Member, Vancouver Rowing Club - Yachting Section