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REGINA — Judge Michelle Brass hopes that she is charting a path for other Indigenous people to follow her.
In late 2018, she became the first woman who is a First Nations to be named a judge with the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan when she was appointed to Estevan. She started working in the city in early 2019 and was transferred to Regina Provincial Court in June 2024. Not only was she the first woman who is First Nations to be appointed to the provincial court, she was the first woman to be the judge for Estevan.
Brass recalled she gained an interest in the legal profession because her father was an RCMP officer.
“I think I had an idea planted in my mind about a legal career. I’m not sure I wanted to do policing, but I went on to go get my bachelor of arts degree in philosophy, and it just seemed like a career in law as a lawyer was a natural next step,” Brass said in an interview with SaskToday.
She became a lawyer in 1998. Brass started her career in Saskatchewan Justice, and then she moved to the federal level. She returned home in 2014, worked for the Saskatchewan Water Security for another year and then opened up her own firm until she was appointed to Estevan.
“It was interesting,” Brass said of her time in Estevan. “My area of law had been in a different area, it wasn’t mostly in criminal law, so it was a good place to learn criminal law.”
Estevan also happens to fall in Treaty 4, which is where her family is from.
Brass believes she brings a unique perspective to the role of a judge as an Indigenous woman. She lived on a reserve and in small-town Saskatchewan before she moved to Saskatoon, Regina and Ottawa.
“I think I have a deeper understanding of Indigenous history and cultural insight and experience,” said Brass. “But I also believe that my perspective is unique in that I can flow in between different worlds, so I can do a lot of cross-cultural … perspectives, which enables me to bridge worlds between Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds.
Other Indigenous people have been judges in Saskatchewan dating back to the 1970s. And there are other Indigenous judges currently presiding over a court in Saskatchewan, including a couple of woman judges.
“Of course, my family and my community and friends were pretty happy about the appointment, and I think people who didn’t even know me were proud of Saskatchewan to finally appoint a First Nations woman,” said Brass.
She doesn’t know if she is treated differently than any other judge because of her roots but she suspects people are apprehensive around judges.
Brass said she hopes young Indigenous women are looking to have a career in the legal world. She has gone to law school a few times to speak and has received a lot of questions from young students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, about her chosen career path.
“Whether it’s because I’m Indigenous or a role model for a lot of people, I know that I was first appointed and was sitting in Regina, and … I found that young people and older people were noticing that this was the first time that they’d ever seen a First Nations woman as a judge in court.”
After she was appointed, Brass said there was a nice reception, and she had a lot of congratulations from the lawyers, deputy sheriffs and staff members.
“Even last week, I had a person who was in court, he just wanted to stop everything, and he just said ‘I just need to say one thing. I've never seen a First Nations person as a judge before,’ and he said ‘You seem quite proud of that.’”
The work is challenging, which she said she likes. Brass added she likes offering solutions and helping people through the process.
“Even in Estevan, it was helping people find solutions for the situations that they were in that was helpful, and I liked to do that. I liked to help people along when they’re having a tough time at whatever stage they were at in their lives,” she said.
If a legal career is something that someone wants to do, then Brass encourages people to aim for it and do it.
