Grace Pastine, KC
Pro Bono Counsel
Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP
Biography
Grace Pastine is a litigation lawyer based in Vancouver. Grace focuses on leading the firm's nationwide pro bono practice in Canada, which seeks to provide much-needed legal assistance to people and organizations of limited means.
Grace works with the firm's pro bono committee to promote access to justice. She provides representation to pro bono clients, develops partnerships with charities and legal services organizations, and identifies innovative ways to connect the firm's resources to important needs in our local and global communities.
She started her career in our litigation and disputes practice group. She went on to serve for 15 years as the litigation director for a nationwide civil liberties organization. In that role, she advanced human rights and civil liberties through impact litigation, spurring significant reforms related to patients' rights, police accountability, and the rights of people in prison.
Grace has testified on human rights matters before Parliament and has represented clients at all levels of court in British Columbia as well as before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Professional experience
Collapse allJD, University of Washington School of Law, 2002
BA, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Wells College, 1997
- British Columbia 2006
- Oregon 2003
Before rejoining the firm, Grace provided advice and acted as counsel on public interest cases, including:
- A constitutional challenge on behalf of Lee Carter and other plaintiffs to the criminal prohibitions on medical assistance in dying (MAID), which decriminalized assistance in dying for grievously and irremediably ill Canadians with intolerable suffering
- Constitutional challenges to the use of indefinite solitary confinement in Canada's federal prisons, including a settlement for a woman who was held in solitary confinement for three-and-a-half years
- Represented a woman with spinal muscular atrophy in a constitutional challenge to portions of the Criminal Code that limited MAID to persons with terminal illnesses
- Provided representation and direction to public interest organizations in numerous interventions before the Supreme Court of Canada on cases related to human rights and civil liberties
- A lawsuit against a government spy agency over its warrantless, mass surveillance of Canadians
- Represented Amnesty International Canada and a civil liberties association in an inquiry into the Canadian Forces' detention and transfer of people in Afghanistan to a risk of torture by Afghan authorities
- Appeared as counsel at public inquiries into the deaths of people in police custody to advocate for an end to the practice of police investigating the police, which resulted in the BC government introducing a civilian-led model of police investigation
- Appointed King's Counsel, 2023
- Hillman Canada Prize for Democracy and Social Justice, 2020
- Action Canada Fellow, 2015
- "The Implementation and Use of AI in Pro Bono," (panelist), Pro Bono Institute 2024 Pre-Conference: AI + Pro Bono, Washington, D.C., March 2024
- "Pro Bono Planet: Shaping Access to Justice Across Continents," (panelist), Pro Bono Institute 2024 Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., March 2024
- "Medical Assistance in Dying Update," Canadian Elder Law Conference 2023, the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC, Vancouver, B.C., November 2023
- "Recent Issues in Medical Assistance in Dying," Health Law course, Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC, Vancouver, B.C., November 2023
- Board director, Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS)
- Member, Association of Pro Bono Counsel (APBCo)
- Member, Canadian Bar Association
- Adjunct professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, 2010
- Adjunct professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, 2007 - 2009