Mr. Buholzer is a partner in a Vancouver law firm with a preferred area of practice in local government law, where his practice focuses on the law of planning and land use management.  He graduated from the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in 1973 and held planning positions at the Peace River Regional Planning Commission in Alberta, the City of Vancouver, and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. After graduating from the U.B.C. Faculty of Law and being called to the British Columbia bar in 1991 he joined Young, Anderson, becoming a partner in the firm in 1996.
In addition to his legal practice at Young, Anderson, Bill has written extensively on planning and land use law, beginning with British Columbia Planning Law and Practice, a desk manual for planners published in 2001 by Butterworths (now LexisNexis Canada), updated regularly, and occasionally cited in B.C. court decisions. He is the author of the Planning and Zoning volume of Halsbury’s Laws of Canada, a comprehensive legal encyclopedia found in courthouse, law school and law firm libraries across the country. He has also written a more general work on the legal aspects of local government, entitled Local Government in British Columbia, for the British Columbia Continuing Legal Education Society, and frequently contributes articles on legal topics to the Planning Institute of B.C.’s Planning West. Bill is an adjunct professor at the U.B.C. School of Community and Regional Planning, where he lectures on advanced planning law topics, and an instructor in Simon Fraser University’s City Program in downtown Vancouver. He has been a popular speaker at conferences and seminars on planning and land use topics throughout his legal career, and has mentored several planners during the early years of their careers.