An Interview with Criminal Justice Lawyer Christopher Johnson, KC
The 2025 Georges A. Goyer, QC Memorial Award winner shares his thoughts on the future of legal aid and his advice to early-career lawyers
Christopher Johnson, KC is the recipient of the 2025 Georges A. Goyer, QC Memorial Award recognizing his exceptional contributions to the legal profession.
A seasoned criminal justice lawyer best known for his work as defence counsel, Chris has also served as Ad Hoc Crown Counsel and Special Prosecutor. He is a founder and director of the Association of Legal Aid Lawyers, where he has long championed access to justice. For more than two decades, his donation to the University of Victoria Law School has supported scholarships for First Nations students.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You've worked on some of the most high-profile and complex criminal cases in British Columbia. What case or moment in your career has most shaped your approach to justice?
That's so interesting! It wouldn't be a high-profile case. I did almost exclusively legal aid for probably at least the first five years of my career. I still take legal aid cases.
You know, I view myself as a professional, and I don't like to get too involved with my clients. But I did have one client who shaped my outlook on things. She was an Indigenous woman, and I think I first represented her when I was maybe a 3 year call. So probably 35 years ago!
During that early stage, she had a couple of kids. I met her kids when they were infants and she... I get a bit choked up about it, but she was a lovely person, and I really connected with her in a different way, because I learned a lot about her. I learned a lot of Indigenous history, which I'd not been aware of. So she used to send me birthday cards and Christmas cards, and she did that for probably 30 years, and I saw her kids grow up. Unfortunately, my client overdosed and passed away about three years ago, but her daughter got married two summers ago and doesn't have a dad, so she asked me to walk her down the aisle.
I can't pretend to be an expert on much, but that really touched me and affected me. So yeah, I think it's a lovely story and it sort of speaks to where I was early in my career doing those types of cases, and I think it speaks a bit to the type of person, the type of lawyer I am, and the work I did.
It made me much more understanding, and it educated me. She was a residential school survivor as well as her parents. So I think I learned all of that [history] before most other people because of that situation. So that really did shape my career in quite a few ways. I think it made me more of a humanitarian.
And so if it had to be a case that shaped my career, I would say her series of cases, because I learned a lot.
What would you like to see in the legal aid system in the future?
One of the things that's on our horizon right now is that we're concerned about the retention of lawyers in the Legal Aid Bar. Crown Counsel in our area of law — criminal law — has been quite successful. They negotiated a deal with the government years ago, where their raises were all tied to the judges’ raises. The judges, of course, get raises, and so the Crown Counsel’s done pretty well. And so a lot of our defense colleagues have joined the Crown, and we're always concerned about that.
We're trying to get parity, and we're trying to increase the budget so that people can make a living and won't be leaving defense. We'd like to be able to offer some benefits like dental plans and parental leave and that kind of stuff.
In my field, it's still probably one of the few areas left where men are much more predominant than women members. I think it's starting to pick up, but it's difficult. You can't have a family and be a legal aid lawyer, because the minute you take six months off, you’re broke.
And so that's really on our radar. We want more women in our part of the profession.
You've worn many hats, from defense counsel to special prosecutor. What would you say it gave you in terms of perspectives of the justice system?
Yeah, I think when I started out, I was a defense counsel. I still am. But I probably didn't do a prosecution case until I'd been a lawyer maybe 7 or 8 years. People in the prosecution asked me if I would do Ad Hoc, which is a contract to do a certain trial, or do a certain courtroom, when the Crown needs extra people.
And then I thought, yeah, I could do that. So I did, and it’s given me a perspective which I think is different than a lot of my colleagues have.
It's like almost any job. If people like you, they listen to you, and if they listen to you, you're more likely to be heard and succeed at what it is you're trying to do. And so, I've always tried to be collegial.
Sure, I've been mad a few times at work, but I don't take that out on people or my professional colleagues. I think that's what I would advise young lawyers to do.
While we're advocates, it's not necessarily diehard advocacy, you know. There's a certain part of advocacy that depends on cooperation. And so when I talk to young lawyers, I do give them that advice, because I've been at this long enough. There are different approaches, and these different approaches work for different people.
But for me, I think I'm pretty well liked by people, and I think when you're pretty well liked, then people are much more likely to listen to what it is you're saying. And so that's the approach I've always tried to have.
What advice do you have for lawyers who also want to start their own firms, like yourself?
There's a lot of advice I could give about that. You know, I didn't start out that way. I was in another firm for quite a while, for I think 15 years of my career.
I think it's a sort of an issue in the criminal bar, because for whatever reason, we attract people that just want to go out there and do it, and I always try to encourage young lawyers to practice with others if they get that opportunity to join a firm or join a group of people that are practicing.
We need a lot of information, like: who is this person? What's the history of this judge in this area of the law? And so I think it's best to practice with other people.
And if you're a young lawyer, attach yourself to a more senior lawyer who you respect. Work with them. Once you feel comfortable as a lawyer — I think that takes at least 5 to 10 years — then make a decision on whether you want to start your own business or not.
What are your hopes for the justice system in B.C. moving forward?
The justice system in general has been doing a lot of work towards making it more accessible to people. I think there are areas where it's not. One of the things we're working very hard on in the Association of Legal Aid Lawyers is to expand family law coverage, which is sadly lacking in this province, and it denies people real access to the justice system. So I think that's one of my priorities.
The justice system as a whole, I admire it. I’m part of it. But I would say the main thing is that we need to really do more to expand access to the justice system by way of giving people access to lawyers.
What is something I didn’t ask you about that you’d like to mention as well?
Well, here's one thing I would mention. I'm a gay person, and what I want to pass on to young lawyers is that, in the criminal justice part of the justice system, I have almost never faced homophobia. And I know it's hard for people to imagine that that is the case. But it is, in fact, a very welcoming bar to almost anybody, and that includes me. And so, I'd like to pay that back in some way.
I've been putting some thought into it. It's not an achievement of mine or anything. It's something that I am thankful for.
I've always felt like the vast majority of lawyers and judges that I work with are good people and are progressive more or less, and they've become more so over the years. I'm proud of that.
I'm not proud of it because of anything about me. I'm just proud of the system, if I could put it that way.
It's a thought that I've had recently that I thought I could maybe help others.
