Our team

Jean was a partner with Pape Salter Teillet from 2005 to 2015 and then was Senior Counsel to the firm until her retirement from legal practice in 2024. She continues her career as an artist, author and public speaker.

As an Indigenous rights lawyer, Jean was both a litigator and a treaty negotiator. She appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in twelve separate Indigenous rights cases, including R. v Powley and Taku River Tlingit First Nation v British Columbia. She helped negotiate treaties for First Nations in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and British Columbia. From 2007 to 2022, Jean was the chief negotiator and a treaty advisor for the Stó:lō Xwexwilmexw – six Stó:lō bands that were negotiating under the BC Treaty Process. During that time, she also sat at the BC chief negotiators’ table.

Jean has also worked on women’s rights issues throughout her career. For many years she served as legal counsel for the Association of Ontario Midwives, which named her a lifetime honorary midwife, as well as for the Midwives Association of British Columbia. Jean also worked for the Morgentaler Clinic and represented the Women of the Métis Nation on many justice initiatives, including appearing at the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Barton (the Cindy Gladue case).

Jean’s work of popular history, The North-West is Our Mother: The Story of Louis Riel’s People, the Métis Nation, was ranked among the 100 most notable books of 2019 by The Globe and Mail and received the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, as well as a Manitoba Day Award. She is the author of Métis Law in Canada and has written for many law journals, newspapers and magazines. In 2022, she authored a report on Indigenous identity fraud, an area in which she is a recognized expert. She has also contributed a chapter to Pretendian Compendium, edited by Michelle Good, to be published by Penguin Random House in 2026.

A frequent speaker on Indigenous identity, rights and history, Jean has shared her insights at events across Canada, as well as in Russia, China, Japan, Poland and the U.S. She serves on several boards, including PEN Canada, Indspire, The Walrus and the Glenbow Museum. A member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, Jean is Red River Métis – and the great-grandniece of Louis Riel.