Canadian Lawyer InHouse

April/May 2021

Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives

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12 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse GC PROFILE studying environment, so Lai has also been tasked with navigating these matters delicately. "We're working to try to make our student discipline processes more flexible so that we can have additional mechanisms for turning what in many cases are poor judgment calls into learning moments," says Lai. He adds that premeditated and deliberate cheating is dealt with traditionally. Supporting UBC in its launch of a new ride-share initiative in partnership with ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber is one of the many projects outside of the field of education that has kept Lai busy in recent months. He has also been involved in supporting the organization in the sale of 67 hectares of land at Kelowna International Airport to the City of Kelowna, so the legal department created a complex set of agreements. Another recent project involved creating agreements with public health authorities to make use of UBC's ultra-cold freezers to store Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. Online resources are valuable tools for Lai and his team at UBC. The legal department established an internal wiki that has been very effective in terms of knowledge gathering, knowledge preservation and knowledge management, and it allows them to be more effective in servicing the organization, Lai says. It also helps improve the quality and consistency of the advice that the team can provide, which, in turn, helps reduce the risk of client groups calling different lawyers to seek out differing opinions. "With a very complex organization, it can be extremely resource-intensive to gain an understanding of how UBC is organized, what Appointed as Queen's Counsel, 2012 Appointed as a member of the university executive, 2007 Appointed as university counsel, 2001 Founding director of entrepeneurship@ UBC Management Inc. Director and officer of UBC Research Enterprises Inc. Director and member of the management committee of the Hong Kong Foundation for UBC Ltd. Member of the National GC Network FACT FILE

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