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barbara findlay Q.C.





​Making the law work for all of us

     Welcome to The Law Office of  barbara findlay, Q.C.​

You have come to the right place for advice and help creating your family through assisted human reproduction.  I do fertility contracts: donor insemination agreements, surrogacy agreements, embryo donation agreements, egg donation agreements, and declarations of parentage.

I also do agreements for folks in poly relationships - agreements among folk about living together, and what happens if some or all of the relationships end,  or agreements among three or more folk who want to raise a child together.

​I have been a queer feminist lawyer, committed to making the law work for all of us, for more than four decades. For me, this has meant everything from  cohabitation and separation agreements, to  ground breaking equality rights cases, to same sex immigration, to wills and representation agreements.  However I am now restricting my practice to family agreements. 

Because knowledge is power, on this website you'll find news about legal developments affecting gay, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people and the  Out/Law series of legal information pamphlets available for download. 

Documents in a Time of Covid


Folks have been interested in how to create health care directives, appoint substitute decision makers, and make a will in the time of Covid.

If you follow these links there are helpful booklets:
​Who Will Care For Me?  Representation Agreements
Making a Will

 You can get helpful information about care plans, advance directives, and samples of those documents here.

I recommend that at a minimum you create a care plan and discuss it with your decision-maker.  If you make no end of life planning, your decision maker by law will be your spouse, if you have one; your adult children; your parents; and so on...and the doctor will call folks in that order.  Put contact information for your decision maker in your wallet.  

No Witnesses?  No Worries!
 Documents generally require two witnesses, signing at the same time and in your presence.

For representation agreements, if you are isolating and need to have your document witnessed remotely, I suggest the following procedure, which I have adapted from the protocols from the Court about remotely swearing an affidavit:

Procedures comply with BC Supreme Court directions for witnessing an affidavit remotely and will probably mean that the document is acceptable.
 
Steps
  1. Include a section in your Representation Agreement or other document  “Signing procedures in light of covid” and describe exactly what you have done to comply with these directions
For example:  I have initialed each page and signed this Agreement in the presence of two witnesses on zoom. Each of them had a copy of the Agreement I was signing in front of them. Each of them initialed each page and signed as a Witness.
They then sent me a scanned copy of their initialed and signed document and I have added those two documents to my own to create one document containing my signature and my witnesses’ signatures. 
 
The witnesses will mail their originally-signed documents to me. 
 
2.Email the unsigned document to your witnesses. 
3. Set up a time for ALL THREE OF YOU TO BE ONLINE AT ONCE 
4. Make a zoom date 
5. While the witnesses watch, you           
            a. Initial every page
            b. Sign on the last page 
6. Each witness
            a. initials every page
            b. signs as a witness on the last page 
7. Witnesses scan and email you a copy of the pages they have initialled and signed AND mail you the originals. 
8.  You create a document with all three scanned signatures.
9.  When you get the originals in the mail, put them with your original:  that is your document to go to the hospital.

 Special rule for Wills: 
The courts can accept any document if they are satisfied that it is your last will.  So if you have no witnesses available, make a video of yourself signing.  Initial every page.  Say, in the video, that you are signing and that the will contains your wishes about what happens if you die.  

Parenting in a Pandemic

The RISE Women's Legal Centre has published a guide to parenting in a time of pandemic.





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barbara findlay is a member of Fertility Law B.C., a group of lawyers working on issues of assisted reproduction and the law.

And In Particular - barbara findlay

Becca Plucer directed a great documentary which looks at the history of queer rights through the lens of my life.
It has been shown on OUT TV, at the Rio Theatre, and at festivals in Montreal, Nelson and Victoria, and most recently at the Queer Film Festival.
The movie includes the ever-fabulous and courageous Vancouver activists whom I have had the honour to work with to move our rights forward: Barbara Bell, Sandy Leo Laframboise, Kimberly Nixon, Shantel Ivits, Craig Maynard, Theresa Tait-Day, Sadie Kuehn, Jeannette Piry, Joanne Arnott, Liz Whynot, and Sheila Gilhooly (my partner, also known as "Sheila the Great").
Many people have asked me how to access the movie.  Click here for the Itunes link.
Copyright barbara findlay 2012-2019 ©


Photo credits and web design
Aerlyn Weissman
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