Contact us & Location

The Indigenous Community Legal Clinic is located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver on traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territories.

Tel: 604 822 1311
Toll Free: 1 888 684 7874
Fax: 604 684 7874
E-mail: iclc@allard.ubc.ca 
148 Alexander Street
Vancouver, BC Canada V6A 1B5

Patricia M. Barkaskas - Academic Director, Indigenous Community Legal Clinic

Member: Law Society of British Columbia

Patricia Barkaskas earned a M.A. in History, with a focus on Indigenous histories in North America, and a J.D., with a specialization in social justice, from the University of British Columbia. She is a sole practitioner and practices in the areas of child protection (as parent’s counsel), criminal, and family law, and has practiced prison and civil law. She has worked closely with Indigenous peoples in their encounters with the justice system and has worked for Residential school survivors as an historical legal researcher for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. In addition she has written Gladue reports for the Provincial and Supreme Courts of British Columbia, and the British Columbia Court of Appeal. Her teaching and research interests include restorative justice and experiential learning in clinical legal education. Patricia was born in Alberta and is Métis from the Lac Ste. Anne Cree/Métis and Red River Métis communities.

Mark Gervin - Lecturer/Legal Services Director

Member: Law Society of British Columbia

Mark is an alumnus of the Allard School of Law; he articled with Glenn Orris, QC and was called to the British Columbia Bar in 2000. A criminal defence lawyer, Mark has worked on and continues to work on murder trials across the province of British Columbia, in addition to many other criminal law offences. Currently, he appears regularly in the British Columbia Provincial and Supreme Courts both as defence counsel and as ad hoc Crown Counsel.  Mark also serves as Chair of the Criminal Law sub-section of the Canadian Bar Association’s BC Branch and is a founding member and Vice President of the Criminal Defence Advocacy Society (C-DAS). 

Christopher Heslinga - Supervising Lawyer

Member: Law Society of British Columbia

Chris graduated from UBC Law in 2012 and articled at a criminal defense firm. He then practiced in family law and civil litigation before returning to UBC to be the Civil Supervising Lawyer for the UBC Law Students' Legal Advice Program (LSLAP) and teach the 'LSLAP for Credit'/Law 491 course. Chris also volunteers with Access Pro Bono and the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS), providing free advice and representation to low income clients. Chris is passionate about mental health law and also provides free presentation for individuals detained or certified under the Mental Health Act, through the Mental Health Law Program at CLAS. As a white, colonial settler, Chris acknowledges the Indigenous groups, on whose land he works and lives as an uninvited guest, namely the Coast Salish peoples–Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and he thanks them for their incredible stewardship of these lands.

Salima Samnani - Supervising Lawyer

Member: Law Society of British Columbia

Salima is a Kenyan Indo-Canadian Muslim immigrant. Her experience as a litigator and as a lecturer focuses on public law and civil law including family, child protection, and employment law. Salima’s research, areas of expertise, and advocacy focus mainly on access to justice, anti-racism, clinical legal education, and education for self-represented and underrepresented litigants. As a lecturer, she is passionate about implementing clinical legal education pedagogies that focus on trauma-informed, skills-based legal training from a feminist, anti-racist and decolonization perspective.