About Mike Race
Mike is Managing Partner, ZSA Western Canada, with over 15 years of legal search and recruitment experience. He focuses on acquiring high performing Partners, Associates and teams for law firms, and In-house Counsel at all levels for Canadian and international corporations, and public sector bodies.
Prior to joining ZSA in 2016, Mike was a Director at one of Australia’s leading specialist executive search firms focused solely on the Legal profession. Mike spent over a decade in Australia helping to grow legal businesses – both private practice law firms and in-house legal teams – through placing lawyers and facilitating law firm mergers. Previously Mike was a commercial litigation lawyer at Australia’s largest law firm.
Mike has lived in Canada before and completed his final semester of law school at the University of British Columbia. Mike is married to a Canadian and his family decided to make the move here permanently, shortly before joining ZSA.
As head of the Western Canadian operations for ZSA for the last 5 years, Mike has led a large number of successful searches for in-house lawyers within corporate in-house legal departments, public sector organizations, and law firms. Since joining ZSA, Mike has personally placed over 150 lawyers, not including his previous decade of legal recruitment experience in Australia.
About Kevin B. Westell
Kevin Westell is a founding principal at Pender Litigation. In addition to his criminal and regulatory defence work, he is often retained to act as Crown Counsel, counsel for witnesses in criminal proceedings and as amicus curiae (counsel for the Court). He has represented clients and the Crown in jurisdictions across Canada on matters at of all levels of seriousness.
He has represented professionals subject to proceedings before the BC Securities Commission and Office of the Police Complaints Commission, the Law Society of British Columbia, the College of Physical Therapists of British Columbia, patients subject to proceedings before the British Columbia Review Board, and amateur athletes and athletic organizations subject to proceedings before the Sports Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada.
Kevin currently serves as an elected Bencher of the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) for Vancouver County and as the Chair of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) National Criminal Justice Section.
About Paul Tonita
Paul is a partner at Pushor Mitchell. He practices in the areas of Business Law, Real Estate Development and Wills, Estates and Trusts. His Business Law experience includes assisting clients whether they are just getting involved with their first business or whether they have established operations that require more sophisticated advice. These discussions often revolve around the various business structures, how to structure a corporation and get it off the ground. Paul has a great deal of experience in assisting clients with the transactional aspects of buying and selling businesses. He also works closely with commercial lenders as they help business owners get established or continue to grow. His clients often come to him to draft and advise on contracts and provide them with general advice.
His real estate practice involves assisting both commercial and residential clients with purchases, sales, financing and leasing. He also works with real estate developers to navigate the complex issues that arise when working with municipalities and ensure they comply with the various statutes that govern development work. He strives to find practical solutions so that his clients can focus on moving their business and developments forward in a timely manner.
Paul also helps clients plan for their future with estate and incapacity planning. He enjoys getting to know his clients through this process, advising them on options and guiding them to a plan that will work for them. He assists executors as they work through the legal challenges that are unknown to many when they agree to take on the executor’s role. This may involve determining whether a grant of probate is required and applying for one if necessary, calling in assets, paying out debts, transferring real estate to surviving joint tenants and determining whether additional steps may be required in order to wind up an estate and transfer the balance of assets to the deceased’s beneficiaries.
