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ASSOCIATES "It is great just to help people. That's one of the reasons I went into law." Keeping it on the level L Halifax associate who looks out for the little guy already has an award named after him. BY B ILL ROGERS evel Chan is in an unusual situation. An associate at Stewart McKelvey in Halifax, Chan has long been known for his enthusiastic involve- ment in volunteer and community work — so much so that the Dalhousie Uni- versity Student Union has established an award named after him. "It's granted each year to someone who makes an outstanding contribution to student ad- vocacy," he explains. "It's kind of weird. I'm still alive." Indeed, awards are usually named af- ter deceased people. But Chan is 30 years old and breathing. "I don't mention this very often, actually," he says with a laugh. "But it's a huge honour." He did a lot of student advocacy work while he was studying law at Dalhousie. It involved representing undergrads who were in hot water, charged with various forms of misconduct such as plagiarism. 16 M AY 2008 www. C ANADIAN mag.com It was one example of what Chan calls "looking out for the little guy." It's some- thing he still does occasionally, even though his practice is management-side labour and employment law. "I did a construction-industry arbitration," he recalls. "And, for once, the employer was the little guy. It was a small family- contracting business and they were up against a large international union." When he gets involved in something, Chan always strives to "leave it better than he found it." The Dalhousie Stu- dent Advocacy office benefited from that philosophy. Under his leadership, it grew from doing 20 cases a year to more than 100. That's one of the reasons the school created an award in his name. "It is great just to help people," he says. "That's one of the reasons I went into law." Raised in Calgary, Chan fell in love with Halifax while at Dalhousie and stayed, deciding to put roots down in the