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“I believe that it’s a legacy that is noteworthy and is in keeping with other initiatives that you took on as a judge,” she said. “We thank you for that.”

Gove said that as a lawyer he always sought the best outcome for his clients, who he recognized were often in difficult situations. He tried to carry that spirit over to his work on the bench, he said.

He sought a less-adversarial approach to difficult family cases and to help solve the problems of people who got in trouble with crime, rather than focus solely on the crime and its punishment, he said.

“I hope that I have solved more problems than I created over the years,” he said.

“This is especially so in family cases and in criminal sentencing. I often worry that I am trying too hard to reorganize someone’s life, when I never really get to know them.”

Gove also endured a good-natured ribbing from defence lawyer Chris Johnson, who said he met Gove before he was a judge.

Johnson had the gallery laughing while pointing out some of Gove’s “foibles,” such as his suggestion, while promoting the court’s community kitchen program, that it would be great for lawyers to dine with the accused who had just prepared the food.

He teased Gove for being the “most-quoted judge” in B.C. media and pointed to at least one instance of the judge being caught Googling his own name on a colleague’s computer.

“Ordering an accused not to possess any beef jerky or any beef-jerky-like products doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Johnson, noting one of Gove’s more-memorable court orders and drawing howls from the gallery.

But Gove has always been a scholar, a gentleman and efficient, said Johnson.

“Over 30 years, Judge Gove has achieved what many of his colleagues cannot,” he said.

“He remained and has remained hard-working, flexible, thoughtful and positive. He has never, to my knowledge, fallen into negativity or bitterness while on the bench, and this is a massive achievement, and one which we and the defence bar admire greatly.”

— With files from Lori Culbert

neagland@postmedia.com

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