LAWYER PROFILE

Bio on Jamie Butler:

I was born and raised in Vancouver attending Prince of Wales High School. At 18 years old I left Vancouver to spread my wings and attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario where I received an Honours Degree in Political Science. During the summer of 1984 I worked at the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa which was a job that taught me how to be political/diplomatic and work within a political structure but importantly also taught me that I would never again work in politics.

I attended UBC law school (as my father before me) and graduated with a law degree in 1990. During law school I worked at BCTel (later Telus) mainly in the legal department dealing with collections and issues of concern to the corporation. I learned from this job that I was not cut-out as a “corporate” person as I realized my value and belief system identified more with the small guy than the corporate body.

After law school I had the pleasure of working during my articled student year (ie. my legal apprenticeship) as a law clerk for Chief Justice Alan McEachern at the B.C. Court of Appeal. It was there that I learned what makes the judicial system (ie. the people behind the decision-making process) work, how judge’s think and what information judge’s view as important and what information they view as garbage. (This would prove extremely valuable in my later life as a “courtroom” lawyer).

I completed my legal apprenticeship at the law firm of Farris & Company under the tutelage of my late great father, Peter W. Butler, QC. Farris is a firm with many big and corporate clients. Though I like working with my father (who was one of Canada’s leading litigators of his time) my experience at Farris & Company taught me that I was not a “big firm” thinker in that, to me, the result for the client seems more important than the billings. I therefore left what many would think an ideal job in the ivory towers to practice in the bowels of the Main Street courthouse working as Crown Counsel.

I worked for the Attorney General’s Office as a prosecutor until about 1995. As a prosecutor I worked primarily as a criminal trial court prosecutor which meant that I was not sitting in my office contemplating the state of the law (and billing clients to death) but rather plying my trade inside the courtroom where on a daily basis I would run trials, present cases and importantly practice the art of cross examining witnesses. In this job I prosecuted many types of criminal cases but developed a special interest in impaired driving cases. From a prosecutor’s point of view it seemed to me that clients who had superior legal advice from competent counsel seemed to resolve their impaired cases without criminal convictions. At this job I learned a lot about people and their motivating factors. It seemed that everyone had a story to tell and I liked to listen. It was at this “job” working for big government that I learned that I was not cut-out to work for big government. I was not politically motivated and learned that I did not like to march to the tune of “government policies” that seemed obviously wrong to me. To me everyone’s circumstances and legal cases seemed different and therefore everyone should be treated differently and their legal cases should not bunched up and treated the same. Thus I learned what I could in the confined environment of the big machine and moved on to ply my trade to the benefit of the people that the machine was meant to protect.

In the mid 1990s I worked for a small personal injury firm. It was at this job that I learned to ply the tools (ie. people skills and courtroom skills) I had learned as a prosecutor for people who had primarily been injured in car accidents. I finally found the work that I was cut out to perform -- working exclusively for “good people who had something bad happen to them!”. I left the small firm and started my own law firm in 1997 – with a promise to myself that the focus of my practice would be the people that employed my services.

For the last 10 years the focus of my practice has been the “little guy”. I am the lawyer that acts for the small guy against the system. I realize that as we go through life it seems like everyone is against the little guy and sometime seem out to squash him/her. The government, the insurance companies and employers all have oodles of money to spend on lawyers to squash the little guy. I am the lawyer who is there to equalize the playing field. It’s my job and my law firm’s philosophy to take on the legal system for the small guy: whether we are fighting criminal/impaired driving charges (against big government), fighting for fair compensation your injury (against the big insurance companies) or fighting for your job (against big employers), it is my job to FIGHT FOR YOU, the little guy.

I have NO corporate clients nor do I want them. I have no government contracts nor to I want them. I do not act for employers , nor do I want to. I am the lawyer who acts for David against Goliath. I am the LEGAL BUTLER at YOUR service.

Though my services are obviously not free they are reasonably priced so that the little guy can afford me.

WHY HIRE US?

Only hire us if you want personal and professional service. We take an interest in every case that we decide (along with the client(s)) to take on. In every case we take the time to educate our clients about their legal matters so that we can make important legal decisions TOGETHER. We are not a law firm that makes important decisions without consulting you. In fact we prefer to have you involved in all the important decisions surrounding your legal matter. We educate you about the law so that you can help us forward your case with your eyes wide open -- not “wide shut”.