Episode 9 · August 2026 · 8 min
How Vancouver’s top lawyers work and play
Barre at 6:30 a.m., a walk in Stanley Park, Tipalti’s GC, and an AI lawyer who will not squander a good life — plus a World Cup weekend.
Overview
Zak is in Vancouver with Breanna and Pauline to see how the city’s in-house lawyers actually work and play. The itinerary is a joke with a straight face: a sunny walk in Stanley Park with Shari Hosaki, a different kind of bar exam (Pauline’s 6:30 a.m. barre class), Alice Davidson at a billion-dollar fintech, and Laith Sarhan on AI and fractional practice. Team Canada is in town for the World Cup. The city gets a vote too.
Alice, GC at Tipalti, started at Fasken in Vancouver because she wanted to be in the business — to know, at the end of a deal, whether the synergies actually panned out. Her legal team is 11, “but I like to say 12,” because two of them are Goodlawyer fractionals. Full-time hire did not make sense. A traditional firm was out on cost and on in-house judgment. The talent she saw were former GCs who had practiced longer than she has. They stepped in. Her Goodlawyer dollars, she says, go a lot further than firm spend. It is now just part of the legal flex — the external bench. She lives remote-first in San Diego most of the summer and is still booking lunch and wine with both of her Goodlawyers.
Shari’s path is the long in-house arc: Bay Street, then Cadbury Schweppes by chance, then 16 years in and a move to the UK to take on their biggest region. Leadership, she says, is not power and control. It is enabling people. Remote practice killed the 8 a.m. rush of lunches, dogs, and school. The profession is changing slower than it should; Goodlawyer is accelerating it. Laith summered at a national firm, ran to startups and Telus to get closer to the computer-geek work, drafted AI contracts in 2020 before ChatGPT, and opened his own practice because he thought AI would change the job. Goodlawyer gave him the freedom to build that practice and still meet clients with interesting problems. He is 34. He does not want to squander it.
What to take from it
- Alice’s math is the GC version of the model: 11 on payroll, two fractionals, and a bench that beats firms on cost and on in-house instincts.
- Former GCs who have practiced longer than the sitting GC can still be the right plug-in — that is the talent pitch she bought.
- Remote-first is not a compromise for her. She is in San Diego for the summer and still having dinner with her Goodlawyers.
- Shari’s “much more peaceful life” is the same unlock as Nofa and Pearl: the work stays; the morning crush does not.
- Laith’s week has no typical week. Fractional is how a 34-year-old AI lawyer builds a practice without leaving the interesting problems.
Who this is for
West-coast GCs who need capacity without another headcount. Lawyers in Vancouver who want the community and the work. Anyone who still thinks fractional is an eastern-Canada story.
Keep exploring
- Tipalti customer storyHow Alice Davidson covers leave and peaks without slowing the business.
- Fractional InHouse™Embedded senior counsel for teams that need a bench, not a search.
- Practice on GoodlawyerHow independent lawyers join the network, set capacity, and get matched.
- Hire fractional counselTell us what your team needs — we match the right lawyer.
Transcript
Lightly edited from the video for readability. Speaker labels added.
Zak Biggs
How do Vancouver’s top in-house lawyers work and play? I’m here with Breanna and Pauline to find out. We’re going to take a sunny stroll with Shari in Stanley Park, and I’m going to put the lawyers through a different kind of bar exam. And then after that, we’ll go and visit Alice, who’s the GC of a billion-dollar fintech company. Not to mention, we’re going to talk AI and fractional practice with Laith. And amidst it all, it’s the World Cup here in Vancouver. Team Canada’s playing, so we’re going to have a bit of fun, too. Let’s go.
Pauline Chan
Okay. Drop down. Up back. Exhale. Inhale. Eight, seven.
Rebecca Hockin
Rebecca, how was the class? It was really hard. It was very challenging. I love a challenge, but yeah, Pauline really did it. Is this your first barre class? Yeah. It might be my last. Just because you can deadlift a lot doesn’t mean you can do barre. That’s all I have to say.
Alice Davidson
Hi, I’m Alice, general counsel at Tipalti. I started my legal career at Fasken here in Vancouver. It was an incredible foundation, but I wanted to be in the business. At the end of every transaction, I wondered, did those synergies actually pan out? I have also been a certified barre instructor for the past five years. There’s probably some overlap between barre and being a GC. In barre, it’s all about control and endurance. And I think that’s really — when you are a GC, you are trusted to be that calming force.
Alice Davidson
Our legal team currently is 11, but I like to say 12, because we actually have two Goodlawyer fractional counsel. Hiring somebody full-time just didn’t make sense. A traditional law firm is also not an option in those circumstances — A, because of cost, but B, they don’t have that in-house pragmatic experience. And when I saw the level of talent that Goodlawyer had — you’ve got former GCs who have probably practiced law longer than I have — they’re absolutely going to be ready to just step in, roll up their sleeves, and hit the ground running.
Alice Davidson
To me today, professional services means traditional law firms and my Goodlawyer budget. I can tell you my Goodlawyer dollars go a lot further. And so that’s a better use of that overall budget. But to me, it’s now just part of my legal flex, my external bench. I’m a true believer in remote-first. I live in San Diego now, here for most of the summer, and I am arranging for lunch and wine and dinner dates with both of my Goodlawyers.
Shari Hosaki
I think it sounds really corny, but I think I always wanted to be a lawyer. I always had this kind of social-justice bent. So when I was 14 years old, I took on the Toronto Star because they published an editorial that justified the internment of Japanese Canadians. I was 14, and what did I have to say? But I was really worked up about it, and I really wanted to make sure that they understood what my family had been through, and many, many families like ours.
Shari Hosaki
I started out at a firm on Bay Street many, many years ago, and then quickly moved by chance in-house to Cadbury Schweppes. I went to talk to them. I thought, this is really cool — you walk in and you see the ads on the walls. And then 16 years in, I was offered a job in the UK taking on their biggest region. It was a big role, but it was tons of fun, and I went to places that I never would have dreamed, and I did things that I never would have dreamed about.
Shari Hosaki
How would I describe my leadership style as a general counsel? I think I would define it as collaborative. I don’t believe in leadership as power and control. I think that leadership should be enabling people and lifting people up so that they can do the best jobs that they can. I love working remotely. I think that’s what used to kill me when I was working in-house all the time — that morning rush of getting up, getting out, making sure everyone’s fed, got lunches, dogs walked, all of that before 8:00. And I think that this has just made for a much more peaceful life for me. I think that the legal profession is changing now more than I’ve ever seen in my career. But I still feel like it’s very slow. But Goodlawyer is doing its job to accelerate that change, and I love that.
Zak Biggs
Let’s go, Canada. Guess we just landed in Vancouver. Couldn’t get rid of me for that long. In the meantime, let’s go check out the Rivian office and do this podcast.
Laith Sarhan
My name is Laith Sarhan, and I’ve been practicing through Goodlawyer for about a year and a half now. While I summered and articled and practiced at a national firm right out of law school, I very quickly knew that I needed to get deeper in touch with my inner computer geek. And that brought me to my first startup role. From there, I joined Telus. I drafted some AI contracts in 2020, in the pre-ChatGPT days, and that was where I had the most fun — in that gray area between technical reality and contractual fantasies sometimes. I really love that space.
Laith Sarhan
More recently, I went off and started my own practice, really out of a conviction that artificial intelligence was going to change the practice of law fundamentally. The specific thing that Goodlawyer offered me was ultimately the freedom to operate and to build my own practice in the way that I wanted to, while still connecting me with clients that had very innovative, very interesting challenges. A typical week for me — it’s hard to say that there is a typical week, to be 100% honest. There’s a lot of flexibility for me within my lifestyle that practicing fractionally has really enabled. I’m only 33 years old. I just turned 34 last Monday. And I feel like I’ve just been so lucky throughout my career, and I really don’t want to squander it. God, man, my life is great. Don’t mess it up.
Zak Biggs
So that was our trip to Vancouver. You saw the great turnout for the 6:30 a.m. barre class. You met Shari, Laith, and Alice. And you saw the joy and the heartbreak of the World Cup. If you enjoyed this episode of the Goodlawyer vlog, then share it with a lawyer friend who might be interested in finding a better way to practice.
