Firm Profile

Ken Smith and Rob Hughes set up the partnership of Smith & Hughes together in Vancouver in January, 1984 with the goal of serving the gay and lesbian communities. We were committed to using the law as a force for change. We observed the needs of many gays and lesbians were not being met through conventional law firms that were ignorant of, or insensitive to, our particular issues. In over 20 years in practice we have responded to the challenges of a growing AIDS crisis and been involved in advancing our communities' human rights and equality.

• Challenging the British Columbia government on funding for AIDS drugs;
• Fighting proposed legislation that would have permitted the quarantine of PWAs;
• Representing the first HIV discrimination case in Canada; Representing the B.C. Persons with AIDS Society dealing with whether a person should be criminally convicted for engaging in unprotected sex knowing they were HIV positive;
• Representing successful refugee claims based on sexual orientation persecution in Azerbaijan, Colombia, China, Ecuador, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Singapore, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and other countries;
• Fighting for the inclusion of same sex relationships in the Family Class of the Immigration Regulations;
• Representing HIV-positive fathers in custody and access cases;
• Representing the surviving same-sex partner in a wrongful death claim;
• Representing the surviving same sex partner in a claim for a Survivor's Pension from the Canada Pension Plan;
• Representing Egale Canada (formerly known as Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere), the national LGBT lobby group, in a case involving accreditation of teachers in public schools from Trinity Western University, an Evangelical university with anti-gay policies;
• Sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace;
• Representing a human rights complainant who was denied life insurance because the complainant's spouse is HIV-positive;
• Representing Egale Canada in a case challenging the Surrey School Board banning 3 books that referred to children with two moms or two dads;
• Representing liberal Jewish rabbis as interveners in support of equal marriage in the B.C. Court of Appeal;
• Representing the Canadian Unitarian Council as interveners in support of equal marriage in the Supreme Court of Canada Reference on Same-Sex Marriage.

Cases we are currently working on include:

• Representing surviving same sex partners whose partners died between April 17, 1985 and January 1, 1998 and were denied the Survivor's Pension from the Canada Pension Plan in a Class Action suit;
• Representing a gay man who is claiming refugee status in Canada because of a well-founded fear of persecution in South Korea based on his sexual orientation and conscientious objection to military service.

Over the years Smith & Hughes has existed in various configurations to include various associate lawyers, articled students and staff to its present size of two lawyers. Each of our lawyers has their areas of practice and interests which enables Smith & Hughes to serve many of the needs of our communities - whether they are individuals, couples, small businesses, or not-for-profit agencies and charitable organizations. Our lawyers also support the equality and acceptance of LGBT and HIV-positive persons through participating in public forums, information sessions, lectures, publishing, and volunteering in various community organizations..

Although our office is in Vancouver, we have clients throughout British Columbia and in other parts of Canada and the world.

Check out Smith & Hughes, a law firm with a proud tradition of serving and contributing to our communities.

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