Claire Hunter QC

Practice Areas

Claire Hunter, Q.C. is an experienced litigator with a broad civil litigation, public and administrative law and appellate practice. She appears regularly as counsel at both the trial and appellate level, including all levels of court in British Columbia and the Supreme Court of Canada, and before arbitration tribunals and administrative boards. She has experience working on complex commercial matters, including conducting internal investigations and conducting trials and appeals in high profile matters across a variety of sectors and on behalf of diverse clients ranging from individuals to large corporations. In 2017 she was named a Lexpert Leading Lawyer Under 40. She is currently ranked as a leading lawyer including by Lexpert “Repeatedly Recommended” in commercial litigation, by Benchmark Canada as a "Litigation Star”, by Chambers Canada as “Up and Coming” in general commercial and by Legal 500 as a “Next generation lawyer”. In addition to a general commercial litigation practice, Claire has acted as counsel on a number of significant defamation matters, on class actions relating to competition and consumer protection issues, on the leading Supreme Court of Canada decision in proprietary estoppel, for marketing boards and stakeholders in supply managed agricultural disputes, on matters arising out of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, and on important public law cases at all levels of court.

Claire joined Hunter Litigation Chambers in Vancouver in 2010 after five years of practice with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, where she focussed on defending financial institutions in criminal, regulatory and securities class actions. A graduate of McGill, Stanford and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Claire spent a year as law clerk to Justice Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada before commencing her practice in New York. She has been a member of the New York State bar since 2004 and was called to the British Columbia bar in 2010. Claire was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2018.

Throughout her career, Claire has been a frequent presenter on professional topics – in particular civil procedure and appellate practice issues, access to justice related topics and on the role of women in the profession –including for CLEBC, the Advocates Society, CBABC and at a number of Canadian law schools.

Claire is actively involved in community work including as a provider of pro bono legal services. She is currently Chair and President of the Access Pro Bono Society of British Columbia and Vice Chair of the Access to Legal Services Advisory Committee of the Law Society of British Columbia. From 2014 – 2017 she was an elected member of the Canadian Bar Association’s provincial counsel for British Columbia. She is also a past president of the Advocates Club, a former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s national Pro Bono Committee and former director of the Lawyers Inn Society. Claire has received a number of awards for pro bono service including the Allan Parker QC Award for Representation Services from Access Pro Bono in 2013, the Harry Rankin QC Pro Bono Award from the Canadian Bar Association in 2015, the Ann Wilson and Robert Prichard Award for Community and Professional Service by the University of Toronto Alumni Association in 2017 and a Lexpert Zenith Award in 2019. She was a volunteer big sister from 2011-2017 and sits on the board of the VSO School of Music.