Turning legal theory into real-world insight, helping us understand the laws that shape our lives
Age: 38
Job Title: Partner with Field Law
Jason Kully became interested in the law the same way a lot of people do — by watching episodes of Law & Order as a kid. However, he soon realized that although lawyers do go to court every now and then, the career and the TV show have very little in common. “They don’t show anyone sitting at their desk answering emails all day,” he jokes.
Kully’s passion for law was further ignited by two influential mentors, James Casey and Justice Kevin Feth, who guided Kully’s career when he started at Field Law, opening doors for him to draft law textbooks and teach at the University of Alberta.
Kully’s real skills as a lawyer are as an advisor. On an average day, he may be consulting with a client about a mundane business issue, but he’s counselled on complicated assignments — such as advising post-secondary schools about how to handle the recent pro-Palestine encampments on campus. Kully says that in his work, he often examines how one group’s expression can affect another, and where that impact might amount to discrimination or a human rights violation.
He brings the high-stakes excitement of these real-world examples to the classroom, where his University of Alberta lectures cover a variety of human rights cases. “I teach my class from a practical perspective (that) this is what human rights law is going to look like should you be practising it for clients in Alberta.” For this, Kully was awarded the 2025 Pringle/Royal Sessional Teaching Excellence Award by the faculty of law.
His gift for illuminating the law has led to him writing textbooks and contributing to the Wise Counsel legal column on CBC Edmonton. “As I’ve gotten a little older and a little bit more advanced in my career, I find passion in passing on the lessons from my mentors,” he shares. “I’m focused now on the privileges that I’ve been given to pass those along and make students feel excited about working in a law firm.”
This article appears in the November/December 2025 issue of Edify
