Meet Eldryth Forgeborn
Look, I'll be straight with you - I didn't grow up dreaming of being a lawyer. Grew up on the rez, watching my grandmother fight for decades to protect our traditional lands from logging companies. She never won in court, but she taught me something more valuable: that justice isn't just about laws written in dusty books.
After law school at UBC (scholarship kid, worked three jobs, you know how it goes), I spent five years at a big downtown firm. Good money, terrible fit. Couldn't shake the feeling that I was supposed to be doing something that actually mattered. So in 2008, I walked away from the corner office and started this practice.
My grandmother passed in 2010, two years after we opened. But she got to see us win that first big case. She called me crying - said she'd waited 60 years to hear a judge say what we'd been saying all along. That phone call? That's why I do this.
These days I split my time between the courtroom, community consultations, and mentoring young Indigenous lawyers. Been called stubborn, relentless, maybe a bit too passionate. Guilty as charged. When you're fighting for people's homelands, their heritage, their future - there's no such thing as too passionate.
Outside the office, I'm usually hiking the North Shore trails, attempting to garden (badly), or losing chess games to my nephew. Still learning, still fighting, still honoring my grandmother's legacy one case at a time.
