About Elsa Wyllie

Elsa is a criminal defence lawyer with experience defending those accused of the most serious criminal offences, including sexual assault, second-degree murder, and dangerous offender designations. Her focus is on providing solutions and securing results for those whom she represents. She has experience at all levels of court, including the Provincial Court of British Columbia, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, The British Columbia Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. She practices law on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, Vancouver, British Columbia. She is Kiwi-Canadian.

She completed her MA in International Law and Security in 2005 in the United Kingdom and her LLM at Columbia, New York City in 2020. She was selected to work on the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, the joint UK/Canadian Task Force. Her work has focused extensively on the rule of law and the intersection of power, legitimacy, and responsibility in international law. She is an executive on the IBA Human Rights Committee and sits on the War Crimes committee. She is currently involved with a broader IBA capacity building initiative in Ukraine regarding the adjudication of alleged war crimes, reviewing confidentially particular decisions with a view for identifying issues concerning compliance with international best standards.

Before she embarked on her legal career, a passion for international relations detoured her down a path in international law and security and experience at institutions including NORAD, NATO and Whitehall. It was while working at the United Nations in Rwanda, (managing a disarmament and reintegration program for militia soldiers from the office where Romeo Dallaire attempted to stop the genocide), that she came to understand both the importance of cultural humility and the power of law as a tool.

Elsa suffered setbacks early in her career after a car accident but returned to practice while managing chronic pain. She has guest lectured at the Peter A. Allard School of Law (UBC) and speaks on panels, most recently GLC: Womxn in Law Series-ITLs, diversity and inclusion. She serves as a Board member at the Trial Lawyers of British Columbia, co-chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and sits on the Criminal Committee. She was asked to serve as a Memorials Evaluator and Judge for the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition (ICCMCC), the largest competition on international criminal law.

Education

columbia-law-school

Columbia Law, NYC, LLM 2020

Elsa completed her LLM at Columbia Law School a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She was awarded an Innovation Grant for her work to transform Columbia Law School by successfully eliminating the availability of single use plastics and collaborating with local farms to offer sustainable food options and composting. Experiential coursework included arguing cases at the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Manhattan. She focused extensively on trial advocacy, human rights and constitutional law.

Otago Law, New Zealand, LLB 2012

Elsa trained at her father’s alma mater, Otago Law School, where her grandfather, by then a judge, had taught him evidence thirty-three years previously. She gained insight into Maori-Pakeha (the Maori term for white “imaginary beings resembling men”) relations in New Zealand and graduated with First Class Honours. She refined and developed her research from her MA, completing “Beyond a Categorically Zero-Sum Game: a New Approach to the Laws of War.” She achieved top of her class in Advanced Criminal Law and was awarded a Faculty of Law Research Scholarship.

United Kingdom, MA (International Law and Security) 2007

Elsa graduated with Distinction from the University of Birmingham, where she completed her thesis “Beyond a Zero-Sum Game: Power, Legitimacy and Responsibility after Iraq.”