Waugh & Associates

About Waugh & Associates

Waugh & Associates is a criminal defence law firm based in Nanaimo, British Columbia, with a second office in Victoria. The firm doesn't publish a street address for the Victoria location, only a shared phone number. Founded in 2021, it now has four criminal defence lawyers, Kendra Waugh, Tom Forss, Julia Turner and Erin MacLean, plus an articling student and support staff. The firm practises criminal defence exclusively, representing clients on charges that include drug possession and trafficking, firearms and weapons offences, fraud, theft, break and enter, and violent and sexual offences, in both BC Provincial Court and BC Supreme Court.

Founder Kendra Waugh worked as a Crown prosecutor before moving into defence work, a background that Waugh's own biography says gives insight into how the Crown builds its cases. The other lawyers came to criminal defence by different routes: Tom Forss worked for years as a carpenter and heavy equipment operator, including four summers in the Arctic, before law school, and Julia Turner previously worked as a legal assistant in the Crown Counsel office. Waugh & Associates offers a free initial consultation before a client's first court appearance and represents clients from bail hearings through trial.