Westhaven Forestry Law About Jeff
Jeff Waatainen, Barrister & Solicitor
Jeff has spent his entire legal career providing service to the BC forest industry. After he summered and articled with Davis & Company in Vancouver, Jeff was called to the bar in 1996 and immediately joined the Forestry Group at Davis where he remained until the summer of 2006 when he went out on his own with Westhaven Forestry Law.
Jeff's father, Bernie, is an RPF who worked with the former MacMillan Bloedel.As such, Jeff grew up in a number of smaller communities on the BC coast such as Nanaimo, Powell River, and Port Clements, and has a close personal connection with the industry. One of Jeff's brothers now also works in the forest industry as a forest engineer.
In 1987 Jeff began his post-secondary education at Malaspina College in Nanaimo. In 1989 he was accepted into the University of British Columbia's honours program in political science, and he graduated with a BA (Hons) from UBC in the spring of 1991. That fall, Jeff entered the graduate program at the faculty of political science at UBC where he studied politics and forest industry. That same year, he was accepted into the six-month BC Legislative Internship Program in Victoria where he spent a ministerial assignment with the Ministry of Forests, and a caucus assignment with the Official Opposition's forestry critic. Jeff graduated with his MA in September of 1992, and started his legal education at the UBC Faculty of Law that same month. Jeff received his LLB in the spring of 1994.
Since his call to the bar, Jeff has worked on an extensive variety of files for an extensive variety of clientele in the forest industry – from major licensees to BC Timber Sales participants; from logging contractors to log brokers and trading companies; from private landowners to First Nations. Since 1996 Jeff has edited Davis & Company's British Columbia Forestry Law, a Canada Law Book publication. Jeff has also taught forestry law as an adjunct professor of law at the UBC Faculty of Law since 1997. Jeff has drafted numerous "Forestry Bulletins" on subjects such as stumpage, new legislation, and aboriginal rights, and spoken to various groups and organizations on a variety of forestry law matters.
Jeff and his wife Paula now live with their two boys in their hometown of Nanaimo. When he's not working or chasing the kids around, Jeff enjoys golf, kayaking, hockey, camping, and playing guitar.
