Improving workplace culture through accountability, fairness, and respect

About Southern Butler Price

Helping you navigate legal issues critical to your organization’s success
__________

Southern Butler Price guides organizations experiencing conflict to find solutions that enhance their commitment to building a positive work environment. We provide neutral services in employment, labour, and human rights law in the context of workplace investigations, mediations, arbitrations, assessments, governance / organization support, and training / coaching. This is not a branch or a practice area of our team; it is the core work of our firm. We are the largest law firm that focuses on neutral investigation work in Western Canada, and we are relied on by employers from across Canada to assist with their most complex workplace issues.

Our Mission
__________

We are dedicated to making the culture of work productive.

We build on an organization’s capacity and talent by helping employers address conflict and poor morale with timely, fair processes that produce sustainable and positive change. 

We assist organizations in identifying gaps, risks, and strategic change in their organizational structure. Clarity in roles and responsibilities, fair and acceptable investigation of conflict, as well as resolutions and accountability in the workplace can lead to huge improvements in morale and organizational success.

We challenge and support employers, employees, and unions to build respectful workplaces that thrive.

Our Core Values
__________

Fairness is key – neutrality is non-negotiable

Our paramount responsibility to clients is to ensure that the process we run is fair for all involved. This overarching requirement guides us in our work and how we manage complex, and at times fractious, matters.

Proportionality matters

The design of the legal response to every dispute should include an analysis of proportionality, relationships, and the long-term organizational strategy. Each approach needs to be tailored, including being sensitive to costs.

Timeliness equals respect for clients, employees, and their businesses

We understand the negative impact that these important legal processes can have on workplace culture and the individuals involved. Our goal is to ensure we run a fair, efficient process, and deliver timely answers to the organization to reduce disruption and create certainty for those involved.

Sectors We Serve
__________

  • Health Care

  • Unions

  • Hospitality

  • Film & Arts

  • Technology

  • Non-Profit & Social Service

  • Regulatory Bodies & Administrative Tribunals

  • Government

  • Natural Resources

  • Manufacturing & Utilities

  • Sport

  • Education (Kindergarten to Grade 12)

  • Education (Post-secondary)

  • Financial

Our History
__________

Founding Partners Southern Butler Price LLP
 

Lisa Southern (formerly of Southern Law), Paula Butler (formerly of Butler Workplace Solutions), and Nicole Price have informally worked together over many years, using synergies to collaborate on our workplace investigation, mediation, and assessment services.

This history allowed us to create, in 2019, a specialized partnership named Southern Butler Price LLP, and to assemble an excellent team of skilled investigators, mediators, arbitrators, assessors, and trainers who bring a professional, practical, and objective lens to the sensitive fact-finding and conflict resolution work that we perform, always with the utmost regard for the impact on the workplace.

In January 2021, Jessica Bowering transitioned from being one of our most experienced lawyers to becoming a Partner.

In December 2021, Jennifer Hawkins, located in Alberta, also became a Partner and leads the team based in the Calgary office.

We respectfully acknowledge that we live, work, and play on the traditional and unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

We acknowledge that we live, work, and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.