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12 www.canadianlawyermag.com FEATURE CROSS EXAMINED Honorary Doctor of Letters, Simon Fraser University Winner, 2022 Canada Reads Winner, 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction Winner, 2021 Amazon First Novel Award ACCOLADES The question assumed "that you wouldn't have the professionalism or the understanding of your ethical obligations to your clients, that my indigeneity would trump that." She stayed for two years with Rush Crane Guenther after her articling. The firm was involved in some of the very early Aboriginal rights cases. The first file that she handled herself was representing five survivors of residential school claims. The Department of Justice then approached her to discuss alternative approaches to resolving these claims. Good accepted their offer and joined Justice Canada in 2002. She stayed until 2004 when she says she was constructively dismissed. "I was accused of not being objective. My life was made miserable the entire time I was there," says Good, who says she settled out of court and that the settlement amount is confidential. Good says she was in a difficult position when she left, since she had to explain in job interviews what had happened. So she decided to leave legal practice and teach at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Eventually, she joined Fulton & Company in Kamloops in 2006. Leonard Marchand, who recently became the first Indigenous person appointed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal, was a partner at the time. "He knew that there had been issues [with Justice Canada]. But he also knew how good I was at resolving residential school claims," says Good. She was then able to focus her entire practice in this area. While Good speaks very positively about her time at Fulton & Company, she knew she wanted to launch a law firm, which she did in 2007. "My clients were all survivors. I did almost exclusively residential school cases. And they were just the most wonderful, amazing people who taught me a tremendous amount in different ways." By 2013, Good decided to wind down her practice to focus on other things, and she also began to think about writing a book. "I was always writing from the time I was a prepubescent child. It was just a part of who I am that I observe, consider, and record that." Eventually, Good enrolled in the MFA program at UBC in 2014 and began to write. It took her nine years to write Five Little Indians. The novel tells the story of five residential school survivors. She says it is entirely fictional but drew on her personal experiences. "My mother's a residential school survivor, my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle. When I went to work with Indigenous organizations, basically everybody that I was working with was a survivor. So this was just my life." Good says that even though there is no connection between her legal work and her fiction, the skills she uses are similar. "When I stand up in the courtroom, I'm telling my story. And my colleague, on the other [side], is telling their story. And I'm hoping that my story is going to be the more persua- sive. It really is storytelling in that way." "My mother's a residential school survivor, my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle. When I went to work with Indigenous organizations, basically everybody that I was working with was a survivor. So, this was just my life"