Callison & Hanna

About Callison & Hanna

Callison & Hanna is an Indigenous led, Indigenous law focused firm in Vancouver, British Columbia, that has represented Indigenous governments and communities since 1996. Cynthia Callison and Darwin Hanna, who met in their first year of law school at the University of British Columbia, opened the firm out of a shared interest in raising the economic and social profile of Indigenous communities. It started from a townhouse and space in a downtown legal clinic and grew into a team that has now been practising together for about three decades.

The firm's work covers treaty negotiations, specific and comprehensive land claims, band governance, self-government and self-determination initiatives, resource development agreements, economic development, and employment matters for Indigenous clients in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Darwin Hanna has been an adjunct professor at UBC's Allard School of Law for about 25 years, teaching First Nations and Economic Development, and wrote Legal Issues on Indigenous Economic Development for LexisNexis. The firm received the Aboriginal Lawyers Forum Award, BC Branch, from the Canadian Bar Association in 2013, a Premier's Award from the Government of the Northwest Territories in 2014 for its work on the Wildlife Act Working Group, and a BC Achievement Foundation Aboriginal Business Award in 2016.