Helena C. Tlen, Lawyer

Helena's Career

Danché. This is the traditional greeting of the Kluane Lake area and Helena's traditional territory of the Lùàn Mn Ku Dn, the Kluane Lake People. She is a descendant of Southern Tutchone speakers who follow a matriarchal moiety system of two clans, Khanjet (Crow Clan) or Ägunda (Wolf Clan). She is Ägunda. She grew up on the shores of Kluane Lake at the base of the Ruby and Nisling mountain ranges to the northeast and the St. Elias Mountains to the southwest. Kluane First Nation, is a Self-Governing First Nation with a Constitutionally protected Final Land Claims Agreement and a Self-Government Agreement. She is a very proud and active member of her community, working and volunteering for them when given the opportunity.  

Helena started at Whittle & Company, Lawyers, in 2006 and began as the firm's runner and file clerk after school and during summers. Helena would return during the summer months of her first university degree and work at Whittle & Company, Lawyers. After she graduated, she worked briefly doing administrative work for the Yukon Ombudsman and Information and Privacy Commissioner. Since Helena's return in 2015, her role at Whittle & Company, Lawyers, evolved to legal assistant/paralegal. While attending the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law, she was a member and co-chair events coordinator of the Indigenous Law Student's Association. Helena spent her last semester working at The Law Centre clinic, a service of the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law that provides advice, assistance and representation to clients who cannot afford a lawyer. She has now returned from Victoria, B.C. where she completed her Juris Doctor degree at the University of Victoria's Faculty of Law. 

University of Victoria, B.A. Political Science 2014

University of Victoria, J.D. 2020

Year of Call: 2022 (Yukon)