Friends, I'm really excited to share the project I've been working on for almost a year. In recent years I've been really disheartened to see how much debt law students have been forced to accrue, and in this last year how unstable employment has become for junior members of the

bar in the face of covid. When starting out, purchasing a robe and waistcoat for court can be very cost prohibitive. So for the last while I have been collecting robes and waistcoats from colleagues who have outgrown them, retired, or been elevated to the bench. The more I worked

my contacts, the more the project grew. I managed to collect a not-insignificant amount of court clothes and thanks to a generous benefactor in QB who wishes to remain anonymous, all the clothing was drycleaned. When I recently asked a dear retired colleague,

Susan Yake Phillipe, QC, if she had anything we could use, she generously offered me her robes and waistcoat, and told me her robes had a very meaningful backstory. You see, they were her mother's robes. Her mother returned to school in the 1970s after having kids and faced many

challenges. Law school initially wouldn't admit her, and she suffered a very serious physical injury after a car accident. Nonetheless, she persevered. After graduating, she had difficulty finding an article. Eventually, Harold (Hal) Veale, QC, took her in. He told me he was very

proud to be her principal. With only a couple of months' work behind her, she applied to take the bar admission course and passed. In anticipation of her admittance to the bar, she purchased her robes. Before she could be admitted, however, she was diagnosed with late stage

cancer and died. Her daughter Susan graduated from law school 5 years later and wore her mother's robes for 30 years, until she herself received her silks in 2014 when she became a Queen's Counsel. My Red Deer friends may know Susan's brother, the Honourable Judge Gordon Yake.

In awe of Susan's generosity to part with her mother's robes, and her mother's perseverance in the face of so many challenges, it felt only fitting to name the robe lending bank after Iris Barry Yake. She went through *a lot* and never got to realize her goal of becoming a lawyer

I hope counsel will make good use of the donated robes and waistcoats and remember that there is a whole community that is invested in your success. You can find the Iris Barry Yake Memorial Robe Bank in the Barrister's Lounge in the Edmonton courthouse. It will operate on an

honour system. If you would like to donate your old robes or waistcoat, please reach out to me and I will make the arrangements. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the robe bank and special thanks also to @VicJones who helped sew on dozens and dozens of labels.