Alumni Book Nook: Dr. Beth Bilson (BA’67, MA’70, LLB’77, PhD), Leah Howie (BSc’05, BE’05, LLB’08, LLM), and Brea Lowenberger (BA’09, JD’14, LLM’18)

The University of Saskatchewan (USask) has played a key role in the educational pursuits of alumnae Dr. Beth Bilson, Leah Howie, and Brea Lowenberger; each has an undergraduate degree from USask’s College of Law, as well as other USask degrees in areas such as psychology, biochemistry, engineering, and history.

Bilson, who received her law degree in 1977, has served as a faculty member in the College of Law since 1979 and has held other administrative positions at USask, including Dean of Law, Dean of Education, and University Secretary. Howie, who earned her law degree in 2008, is the director of the Law Reform Commission of Saskatchewan and a sessional lecturer at the College of Law. Lowenberger, Saskatchewan’s Access to Justice coordinator, earned her Juris Doctor degree in 2014 followed by her Master of Laws degree in 2018. She is a sessional lecturer at the College of Law and the co-founder and director of CREATE Justice (Centre for Research, Evaluation, and Action Towards Equal Justice) at USask, which works toward creating a more accessible justice system through the implementation of new or existing projects.

The alumnae and legal scholars recently united to co-edit a new book, Creating a Seat at the Table: Reflections from Women in Law. The book, published by the University of Regina Press, includes a forward written by the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin. The project was informed and inspired, in part, by the previous work of organizations such as the Law Society of Saskatchewan and the ground-breaking Touchstones Report (1993) of the Canadian Bar Association.

Creating a Seat at the Table: Reflections from Women in Law celebrated its one-year anniversary on Oct. 7, 2024. Events were previously held in Saskatoon, Regina, and at the College of Law to celebrate the launch of the book in 2023. A podcast associated with the Creating a Seat initiative, titled “Dear Beth…A Women in Law Podcast,” has also been produced.

Lowenberger, on behalf of the three co-editors, recently answered questions for the Green&White about the book.

Eighteen female lawyers—some with highly successful careers behind them, some just starting out—reflect on their hopes, challenges, triumphs, and, sometimes, regrets. Creating a Seat at the Table is an edited collection that compiles the experiences of 18 women as they navigate their way through the male-dominated spaces of law school and the legal profession. Hear from women from different generations and areas of the law—big and small law firms, legal aid, government and politics, the judiciary, in-house positions, administrative agencies. The authors discuss a multitude of issues they’ve faced in their careers, including the compound effects of discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, or disability as well as gender. The stories presented here are inspirational at times and discomforting at others. Creating a Seat at the Table shows that much has been done to advance women in law but also highlights that much remains to be done.

For decades, the College of Law has been graduating an equal number of women and men from the college, yet women only account for 39 per cent of practicing lawyers in Saskatchewan. The authors, like many members of Saskatchewan’s legal profession, had found themselves in many conversations and professional development activities related to this statistic and the challenges women face throughout their legal careers. In one of these conversations, the authors decided one small step they could take to improve things would be to produce a book of personal reflections from contributors that would celebrate the success of College of Law alumnae, inspire action in the legal profession towards improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and encourage readers. The authors were inspired by the format of the Dropped Threads series, and by their own research as to how individual and collective reflective practice can lead to transformational change.

Inspiring, courageous, authentic, enlightening, and hopeful.

It features the stories of successful USask College of Law alumnae.