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Page 3 of 3 You’ve been practising law since 1974. What keeps you in the profession and what made you come back? That’s correct — with a seven-year hiatus. I left and went and ran a film and television company for seven years. I’ll answer the second question first. I left the business world to come back to practise because I missed the practice of law. I missed the law firm environment. It’s a partnership. We’re not a corporation and it’s a very different culture in a partnership. A partnership, as somebody once said, is one of the few organizations where the owners come to work every day. There’s a high degree of collegiality, there’s a high degree of mutual respect and trust among partners. It’s a very good atmosphere. Practising law is intellectually stimulating, you get a high degree of job satisfaction when you’re helping your clients. It’s something I enjoy doing a great deal. It’s a little ironic, I’ll say, that here I am approaching the end of my career and I’m not practising law at all at the moment. I’m spending all my time managing. I miss it but this is what my partners want me to focus on, so that’s what I do. What advice do you have for young lawyers entering the profession during these tough economic times? It’s a good question and a very relevant one as our youngest child, our daughter, is just finishing up her articling period at Gowlings. Keep your head down and work hard. If you enjoy the law, then you’ll have a wonderful career as a lawyer. In society, there is a constant need for lawyers. There is a lot of government regulation, there are a lot of rules. The world is becoming increasingly more complex and increasingly more regulated and lawyers are needed to assist clients through all the regulations, let alone the whole issue of human rights and the rule of law, which are the bedrock of our society. It’s a wonderful career, the practice of law. If you enjoy the law . . . and you’re a lawyer, you’re lucky because people who enjoy what they’re doing are very fortunate. A law firm is a super environment. I wouldn’t have come back to it if it weren’t. Other thoughts We spend a lot of time focusing on how we can make the practice of law at Stikeman Elliott more attractive to and interesting for our younger lawyers. It’s an issue because the practice has become very demanding. And it’s not just the practice of law, it’s the business world, the pace has picked up a lot. If you’re working on a transaction you’re fundamentally on call 24 hours a days, seven days a week and that’s tough. We make sure we have as good technology as we could possibly have so people can work from home and don’t have to come into the office. Try to be flexible in terms of having arrangements so people can work from home if it’s necessary. Things like that. Just a whole lot of little initiatives that we think over the long term and taken in the aggregate will make a difference. It’s going to be a challenging year but challenging years are interesting. They provide opportunities. There are always opportunities that come out of challenging times. I’m more optimistic than some people. But you can’t ignore it, it’s going to be a tough year. And we’ve got to stay very close to our clients and do whatever we can to help them.
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