Bonita J. Thompson K.C.

Professional Background

Bonita Thompson is Counsel in the Public Policy Practice Group at Singleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP.

Bonita has had a varied professional career — as an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Saskatchewan in the early seventies, in the B.C. Attorney General’s Department as a Senior Legislative Counsel and then Senior Solicitor into the mid-eighties and then as the Executive Director of the B.C. International Commercial Arbitration Centre.

She joined Singleton Reynolds in 1988 and combined her interest and background in policy development, legislative drafting and conflict management into a consulting practice that focused on the preparation of industry standard-form and manuscript construction and consultants’ contracts, designing and evaluating conflict-management systems for the private and public sectors, resolving disputes through facilitation, mediation and arbitration and conducting “partnering” workshops for construction projects.

She has also provided policy and strategic advice and assistance to self-regulatory bodies. Bonita is limiting her consulting practice to advising public sector and private sector clients on code of conduct and conflict of interest guidelines, drafting legislation and regulations and designing conflict-management systems and strategies.

Education

• Bachelor of Arts (Magna Cum Laude), University of Saskatchewan: 1971
• Bachelor of Laws, University of Saskatchewan: 1972
• Master of Laws, Yale University: 1977
• Called to the Bar: 1973 (Sask); 1979 (BC)

Rankings + Recognitions

• Appointed Chartered Arbitrator of the Arbitrators’ Institute of Canada
• Appointed Kings Counsel in the Province of British Columbia in 1985
• First recipient of the President’s Award from the B.C. Branch of the Canadian Bar Association in 1991, for distinguished service to the legal profession
• Appointed Code of Conduct Advisor to B.C. Hydro in 1998

Memberships

• Founding Executive Director, British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre, the first such centre in Canada
• Chair, National Canadian Bar Association Task Force on Alternate Dispute Resolution
• Chair, Canadian Bar Association Legislation and Law Reform Committee