Renee Cochard

For her outstanding service in establishing and presiding over two specialty courts in Edmonton, Judge Renée Cochard is the 2023 recipient of the Indigenous Justice Award from the Indigenous Law Students’ Association at the University of Alberta. When founding the Indigenous court, Cochard brought Native Counselling Services of Alberta and the Yellowhead Tribal Council into a partnership that also includes Legal Aid defence, court administration, police corrections and community service providers. The mental health court “slows the court process down,” said Cochard, so that the lawyers and judges receive the full story that can often be lost amidst a conventional court’s busy schedule. Cochard was called to the bar in 1979 and holds an LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution from York University (her thesis concerned residential school litigation). In 2004, she was appointed a Queen’s Counsel for her significant contributions to the legal profession.