From selfies to thrifting: BC's new top lawyer marks a "generational shift" for the province

Feb 3 2022, 4:20 pm

When the BC government went looking for someone new to lead its justice system, it decided to break the mould.

Gone was the prototypical choice – the veteran male lawyer with a tuft of white hair and an dry resume of civil service. Instead, it tapped a young superstar from the legal community, whose meteoric rise signals what Attorney General David Eby calls a “generational shift” in one of the most important jobs in the province.

At 43, Shannon Salter may be one of the youngest people to ever hold the position of deputy attorney general. 

She may also be the first with an active social media account, where she posts selfies around town in a rainbow-coloured Ruth Bader Ginsburg mask, shows off the latest trendy outfits she scored at thrift stores and shares funny videos of her cat jumping into the frame to interrupt her Zoom work calls.

“I also sew a lot of my own clothes and thrift them,” she says, before launching into an enthusiastic and detailed explanation of the merits of environmentally-friendly materials for home sewing.

“I mainly sew out of recycled fabric too,” she adds, and then pauses before laughing. “That maybe sounds a little obnoxious.”

Salter has spent the last eight years creating and chairing BC’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, the country’s first online tribunal where people can solve small claims, strata issues and minor motor vehicle injury disputes with the help of facilitators and a guided process, rather than clogging up the courts.

Its success as a flexible, speedy and innovative reform to the justice system has made her an international expert in judicial reform.

Then, last month, she got an offer: Would she like to take over running the Ministry of Attorney General, with an almost $1.3 billion budget, overseeing Crown prosecutors, the court system, and more than 15,000 staff?

“It was the furthest thing from my mind,” she said. “But when the opportunity came up, I thought this was the chance to apply some of those skills in a bigger arena. And the potential involved in that was so compelling, it caused me to risk getting out of my comfort zone and apply.”

But she almost didn’t take the risk, falling prey to the kind of second-guessing and undervaluing of her qualifications that she says plagues many women in the legal field.

“I made it my mission whenever I got an opportunity, particularly in a room full of women and women lawyers to reassure them and give them that message that they are likely way more qualified than they think they are,” she said. 

“When this opportunity came up, I realised how much easier it is to say those things than do them. But I had great people in my corner nudging me forward.”

Salter takes on an enormous job

Eby said he wants her to “help ensure our government is creative and nimble in responding to the major challenges we face in the legal system” including the impact of COVID-19, while also developing new technologies that will let people access justice services quickly and easily.

The role of deputy attorney general is also unique in government. She’s charged with keeping political interference out of the justice system.

“Anybody who looks at this job and thinks that’s a piece of cake doesn’t even appreciate the tip of the iceberg of it,” said Salter. “It’s an enormously complex challenge.”

Growing up, running the province’s justice system was not something that crossed her mind. 

Salter was raised on a hobby farm on Salt Spring Island, milking goats, shearing sheep, collecting eggs and mucking horse stalls. There was no TV, and she was home schooled from Grades 7 to 10.

“If you were placing bets, I’m not sure that I’d land where I am,” she jokes of her upbringing.

But her curiosity quickly outgrew the island. She got involved in youth parliament, then political science and law school at the University of BC. 

Salter and her husband, who is also a lawyer, have two girls, aged 9 and 12. If she has rare time in the evening to destress, she uses it to build furniture.

“I’m a beginning woodworker – I haven’t lost any fingers yet,” she said. “But I do build furniture around the house.”

Sewing and woodworking are satisfying tactile antidotes to the modern work life of emails, PDFs and meetings, she said.

Her new job will dramatically reduce her free time. The workload of being a deputy minister is notoriously demanding, and the attorney general’s portfolio is known to be crushing.

How she’ll balance the pressures of family and a new high-profile job is not a question a man would get asked if he was accepting the position. 

“I note I’ve been asked that a lot when male colleagues have not,” she said. “The tension there is the reason we ask women that is because we know women are disproportionately responsible for child care, so it’s a natural curiosity. It’s a reflection of a greater social imbalance”

Salter employed 80 per cent women while running the Civil Resolution Tribunal, and tried to address head-on the societal unfairness of expecting women to navigate the balance of children and careers.

It’s one of many reforms she intends to take into the attorney general’s ministry as well.

“How do I manage that balance? Really imperfectly. But at the same time, the best I can.”

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