Barry Weintraub

2Hello, how are you, Pulat?

4That's correct.

6Well, if I got called to the bar today, I'd be really old for the beginning of my career. But back then I was young, and I think like everyone else, you're young and you're optimistic. And I think I started actually as a summer student in '86 at Stikeman Elliott, had a fantastic experience working with John Sopinka on public inquiries, constitutional cases, libel actions. It was It was really great fun. Work was fun, and I have actually always felt the work is fun. I still feel that way about it. I think one of the things I see today, and a lot of this comes from social media, but I think there's a lot of, a lot less optimism among younger lawyers today about the future and about whether they can have fun practicing law.

7And that I think is sad because to me it's always been an adventure. It's always been about learning new things. You get to help people, you get respect, you get to work with language, you get to work with people. It's just a great job. And so I would say that there's a general sense of bit more pessimism, a bit less optimism than in, in the '80s when I started. But, but that isn't really that new. It changed and it changes with situation in the world. Early '90s, GST came in, the real estate market crashed, and all of a sudden people weren't as optimistic as they were in the, in the late '80s. Then what happened is because of the market changes, there was all this litigation that got started in the '90s.

8And then there were delays in the court. And the delays in the court lead to loosening of summary judgment motion rules. And so then there's a big move to do summary judgment motions. And then there's a swing back away. So there's pendulum swings over time that repeat themselves. We as lawyers are not immune from what's going on in the world around us. So I think if you look over the last 5 years of the world, in a lot of ways there's been a lot of bad news. There's been a lot of controversy, controversial leaders, controversial people getting headlines and controversial events that have, I think, made people more angry, more expressive of anger, and a little bit not as nice in terms of being respectful to others.

9And so now what we're hearing, and I think in courts what we're seeing a lot of, is civility is the issue now that people are talking about, about how uncivil it is. And I find that actually quite an interesting thing, having gone through 4 decades or 5 decades of different types of lawyers. In my experience, actually, when I started, all the lawyers knew each other and they were gladiators, and it was kind of a rite of passage to to get beat up on and to survive. And you prided yourself on surviving. And I had a lot of good lawyers I worked with who sort of taught me the ropes of how to deal with nasty lawyers.

10And the best advice I ever got was working with Paul Rouleau, taught me that what you do when you get in a war of words with someone is write for the judge. Judges don't want to hear that nonsense. So just appeal to the better side of the other lawyers, write for the benefit of the court, encourage the other side to cooperate rather than making noise. And it works because if the other lawyer is smart, they will realize that judges don't want to hear bickering and they'll be more constructive. If they're dumb on the other side, then what they will do is continue to fight. And so it's a, you know, people can be as nasty as they want, but they're going to lose more often than not.

11And that's what I think lawyers need to understand today is it's, if you want to win about when it's about winning, the smart lawyer will be civil. And, and it's less effective to be nasty. The other thing I want to say is that over the years, what I've found is you can't be all things to all people. You really have to, at some point, learn about yourself, learn who you are, what you can do and what you can't do. And you can't please all people. And I think a lot of the problems with Civility comes from clients. There's a lot of clients out there who don't want civility. They want somebody who's going to be a tough guy, who's going to beat up the person that they are fighting with.

12And so they will find a lawyer who will tell them what they want to hear and will do things the way they want to do it. And And if you as a lawyer are predisposed or have been trained or learned how to fight and fight aggressively, then you will come across and make a very good impression with a client who wants a lawyer like that. And that's— so it's not so simple as to say all lawyers should be the same. I think also looking at this from a broader sociopolitical perspective, there's a lot of people in our society who are not privileged, who are underprivileged, less privileged, on the outside. And, and, you know, they're— when I went to school, the, the concern was that courts were about and for privileged people.

13And it's too conservative. And it's all about rich people fighting over how much money they're going to get in litigation, as opposed to big issues of social justice where people get left out. And I guess my point is, if you're fighting for someone who is in a bad way, who's downtrodden, if you're not a little bit angry, are you really doing your job to well represent what your clients are experiencing? You know, we are here as professionals doing a job for our clients in trying to speak for them. In a democracy, that is a true privilege. It's something that is a responsibility. Because if people cannot speak for themselves, they rely on us as lawyers to get their point of view across.

14Sometimes a little bit of anger is, in my perspective anyway, warranted and necessary. And I think we lose sight of that. Let me give the classic example. I'm going to weigh in on the, on the Joe Groia case, where he was defending a very unpopular person charged with criminal offenses. His defense was that the prosecution had been overzealous. And so he would make objections and the Prosecution rose to the bait and made it, turned it into and took it as a personal attack and got really upset about it. And the fight was on. And that in a lot of ways played into the hands of the defense strategy that there was the prosecution had gone overboard.

15And in my view, You have to keep in mind the context of it. You can say, in fairness, that's not a very good legal argument. But you know what? A lot of times if you're representing unpopular people, perhaps that is the best defense that's available to you. And you run with it. And, you know, a good lawyer will make sure that by the time you hit the courtroom steps, you frame the issues in a way that puts your client in the best position possible. And someone who's fighting the establishment is, you know, is a different way of doing things. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It really depends on who you're representing. And I think that's something that there isn't one way of doing lawyering that is the only good way and the only right way.

16And there is not a one type of lawyering that fits all clients and all client situations in every case. I think as lawyers, we need to be adaptable a bit, have more than one face, more than one trick, more than one tool in our toolbox. For how we present cases, how we think about cases, and how we prosecute them.

18I mean, one thing I can say that, that there are others around who will remember this, but the nastiest lawyers I ever came across were the ones who were 15 or 20 years older than me when I was a puppy. And it was kind of fun in a way to be able to go to battle and survive. You had to be a little bit strong. You had to be a little bit self-assured. And I think that is another aspect of what I see in the legal profession today is that a lot of us are uncertain of our future, and that reflects in the way we think of our job, think of ourselves, and our preoccupations.

19From my perspective, I think that we should keep in mind that our job is as a lawyer to speak for people, to help people with their problems, And what that means is we, we need to focus on our clients' problems and help them solve them, full stop. That's our job. It is to do that well. I think we have to take care of ourselves. We have to be a person who can give good advice to clients who are in need. And In a way, I would say that's sort of the full stop. That's where our job starts and ends. But in doing that, we have to take care of ourselves so that we can do that for our clients.

20Everyone in the world, you know, has some, some mood issues. I have happy days, I have sad days. Everyone else does too. We all have our problems. What we're lucky enough to do is that people will come to us when they're in need. And I think we have a responsibility to help our clients. And that means taking care of ourselves. It means, I think, a certain amount of mental toughness is required to be able to put your own problems, your own issues to the side and do your best for your clients, because that's what it's all about. It's, it's why we have all chosen this profession, is to help our clients. And, and it's not really about ourselves.

21And, and I think we should keep that in mind and try and make it less about ourselves and more about our clients. We're lucky people.

24Well, well, the, the classic one I remember, I was a great lawyer named Ian Outerbridge, who was the, the big man on campus at U of T in the '50s, was one of the leading lawyers, was former Justice Farley's partner for a while, I believe. A great lawyer. And his style was bombastic. I was involved in a case, and it was a multi-party case. We were working with another of the parties together and brought a motion that the other party that was our ally in the action was not able to bring. And so Mr. Outerbridge wrote me a nasty letter saying the judge had ordered no motions to be brought and you brought the motion.

25And then he ended it with the line, you, in in bold block letters at the bottom, you'd be well advised to exercise caution in your interactions with members of the opposite gender in light of the no means no legislation that had just come out in the early '90s. I was dumbfounded by this a little bit, and I was working with Peter Howard at Stikeman Elliott at the time. Peter was and is very knowledgeable about famous quotations, and I had seen on a letter he had written a quotation from Shakespeare. So I stole it and wrote back with a preamble to my letter that said, "There is no terror in your threats." For I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind, which I respect not.

26That's from Act 5 of Julius Caesar, apparently. I'm not a Shakespeare scholar. I want to point that out. I'm a prairie kid. But I used that and then said, your rhetoric is as offensive as your remarks are inaccurate, and then simply responded to what he said and said, we brought the motion and we're entitled to bring the motion and we weren't bound— blocked by it. That letter brought a retort from Mr. Outerbridge that was even better. He said something about past wind being very idle. And it was an incredibly clever response by him. You know, this was fun, is I guess what I'm saying. It was harsh, but I survived. You know, you don't let— we didn't let things bother us that way.

27If you did, you had no future, really, was the the way things were looked at back then. And the old-time lawyers were gladiators. They fought with each other, sort of like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons with Sam and Ralph. The coyote is out hunting, and Sam, the Ralph, he's Ralph, and Sam the sheepdog is protecting the sheep from the coyote. And so the sheepdog beats up on the coyote all day long. And then at 5 o'clock, the whistle blows and they walk home together and say, see you tomorrow, Sam. You know, that was kind of the ethic in those days. And they took it to heart. These lawyers, you know, I heard stories from Mr.

28Sopinka about Walter Williston would always invite opposing counsel out for dinner whenever they were at the Supreme Court in Ottawa. and they'd have dinner before. The reason Walter Williston did that is he was very experienced at drinking and would drink the other lawyers under the table, and they would both go home very drunk, and Walter Williston got an advantage from that because the next day he could function and the other lawyer couldn't. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it's sort of part of the lore that I learned. You learn stories about people and how things were done. They all, the lawyers all knew each other. They respected each other. They knew each other's weaknesses and strengths.

29And sometimes they didn't respect the others. They said what they thought and you knew each other. I think today, very few people know other lawyers really well. You know a few people, you know a lot of people very loosely at first, but it takes a long, long time to get to know people really well. And that's where we have lost a bit of collegiality because as an articling student, I got sent on motions, discoveries, assignment courts all by myself. I did a trial, a small claims court trial, all by myself as an articling student. We got in court a lot more. We saw other lawyers. We were going up against more senior lawyers, and you learn from them.

30And, you know, I remember the senior lawyers that I was on the opposite side of cases who would help me. And that always stuck with me. It's something I've always tried to do is help other lawyers. And part of that is because I remember what it's like to be thrown in and you learn on your feet, you make some mistakes. But a mistake is not the end of the world. A mistake is a learning experience. And you get better from it and you vow not to not to make the same mistake again. If you never make mistakes, then you never learn. And I think that is a comfort zone that people don't have. And look, even from throughout my career, there are some people who love going to court and some people who really don't.

31They get nervous. They have to push themselves to prepare. And they do it, and they find a way to make it work for them. I knew one lawyer that I worked with who would throw up every morning before going to court but would win, would do the work necessary to overcome that and be able to function. Everyone has their own issues, and it is up to us to find a way to, to overcome them and, and do the best we can for our clients.

33There's another one from the mid-'90s that I remember was circulated. I had discovered a transcript of two lawyers, and one of the lawyers was a very prominent litigator and wasn't particularly well liked. And what the transcript showed is is this. There was a dispute over some question and a bit of an argument on the record. And then this line, let the record show that opposing counsel is pouring coffee on my papers. Let the record show that he's doing it again. That lawyer who poured the coffee got disciplined. And I remember reading this and I thought, what's the real story behind this? So I picked up the phone and I called the lawyer who had poured the coffee on the other lawyer.

34And the interesting thing about that story was what he told me is he said, you know, I kind of lost my temper. We had a firm retreat scheduled for that Friday morning and he had opposed and he wouldn't allow an adjournment of a discovery. And it was really, it was in the middle of the summer. And I was really angry and I shouldn't have done it and I lost control. And he said, and I really regretted it. He was disciplined by the Law Society and he apologized and it passed. But he also made an interesting comment. He said, the interesting thing is how many calls I got from other lawyers congratulating me for doing it and saying they wish they'd done it themselves.

35Look, this is a stressful job. It's something where the other lawyers have a job to do as well. Their job is to advocate for their clients and to make your client look bad. You're just the representative of your client. None of this is personal. I was crossing my first case. As a lawyer, almost 35 years ago, when I, my first day as a lawyer, I had to put together a motion record to dismiss for delay an action that had been alive for, at that point, 12 years. And so I went through the entire record and did an affidavit setting out the record. And I was cross-examined. And the lawyer on the other side, Bill Trudell, was a very prominent criminal lawyer used to doing a lot of jury trials.

36And so we were arguing the motion. And one of the arguments that Mr. Trudell made was to criticize the plaintiffs for not swearing affidavits on the motion to dismiss this. It was a libel action. And as he's doing this, he said, instead of the defendants swearing their own affidavits and submitting themselves to cross-examination, they send, set up a wet-behind-the-ears first-week lawyer to do the affidavit for them. And as he's making these submissions to Justice Rutherford, he walks by me because jury lawyers will pace back and forth across the courtroom. So he's going across the courtroom and as he As he's saying this to the judge, he turns to me and winks. And I realize then this is all a play.

37It's all an act. It's kind of a script. And it's a script that you don't know what's going to happen next. And you improvise and you make up the script. And you know, that's the fun of this job. Is that uncivil? I didn't take it personally. I didn't think it was uncivil. I thought it was actually very clever. And we won the motion, got the case dismissed. And unfortunately, the Court of Appeal disagreed later on and reinstated the case. And it ended up my first trial. And we lost that trial. It was a 4-week trial that we lost. It ended up— this case went to the Supreme Court of Canada. Losing a trial is a horrible experience that I recommend to every lawyer because— I did it.

38If you haven't lost, I mean, if you haven't lost, you haven't learned. And I learned a lot. Sheila Block was the lawyer for the plaintiff, did a fantastic job. And you see the difference that lawyers can make in a trial. And I learned a lot from watching Sheila do, perform, and do a fantastic job. You know, what you do, I think, over time is you want to win more than you lose. You better win more than you lose. And really, if you think about it, because you can always settle a case, you should win most of your cases. I also think though that if you win every single one of your cases that you take to trial, then you're probably selling your clients a bit short.

39Not every case needs to settle. Sometimes there's cases where it could go either way and you should take a shot at it. And you discuss the risks with the client and take a shot. So to me, I guess the ideal outcome is your record should be 75%, 80% wins because you should be smart enough to avoid ones that are sure losers. Settle those ones. Do your best to put forward the mitigating facts and settle. And that's really what good lawyers will do. And that's why you can win more often than you lose. But if you win everything, then you're probably settling cases too easily. And so I think that's sort of a way to look at it.

41Well, what have your experiences been with civility?

47Well, let me start with recent times and, and at, say, post-COVID. Right now, the, the motion wait time is crazy. And there's an incredible pressure that everyone in the justice system is feeling. And I've seen this with judges. They are really hardworking people. They are trying to do a job. I have seen some of the most impressive judging. I was doing an appeal in a provincial offenses court. And they were hearing appeals of people who— one of the appeals was someone who pled guilty and paid a speeding ticket and then tried to get an appeal of it and reopen it because they found out afterward that their insurance was going to go up.

48And so they brought an application to court, got had it dismissed and tried again at the appellate level. What they lost, as is predictable, but what I was very impressed with was that the judge, it was Justice Cooper in Newmarket, took the time to explain why to that litigant who was self-represented, to explain why it was that they lost their case and treated them with respect, treated everyone in the courtroom with respect. And yet the lists were long. Everyone had to wait. My appeal didn't get heard until 2:30 in the afternoon because there were, there was all this stuff and we didn't get finished. And it is a system that needs to be reorganized, needs more resources, and everyone is struggling under that.

49Every judge is feeling that pressure because they're all wanting to do a good job for the litigants, for the public, and they feel frustrated. And that frustration is often very visible, and yet when they get to focus on the issues, they focus on the issues and they do a good job. I think we are very well served by our judiciary. And I think there are, as a whole, I think there are some judges that are definitely better than others. Some judges who are, sometimes let their own frustrations show through in their demeanor in court. And I think that's unfortunate. But that's part of, you know, one thing I was taught early on is the first thing you do when you go to court is find out who your judge is and know that judge.

50Do some research on the decisions that judge has decided. Talk to some people who've appeared before that judge if you've never done that before so that you're prepared because your clients want you to win and there are different ways to win. There was, I saw recently, Justice Montgomery just passed away and there were all kinds of tributes to him. He was a judge who was very, very good in some ways, but he was also a judge who made up his mind on a case before you'd even walk into the courtroom very often. He still would listen and give you a good hearing, but you always had the sense that you knew where he stood.

51That is, with some judges, it's a good thing. Other judges, it's not a good thing. And it really depends on their demeanor. I think the foremost quality that a good judge has is respect. They respect people and treat them respectfully. And to me, that is the essence of the system of justice, is the administration of justice is to treat everyone with respect, even as we're throwing the book at them or giving judgment against them. It's, will the person who is the loser in a case feel like the judge listened? Will they feel like the judge treated them respectfully and disagreed with them? And it is not always the case that litigants who lose blame the judge.

52And that's where, and if you realize that, a friend of mine told me a story of a labor arbitration that he lost. And it was a hard-fought battle and the client lost and after came up to him and said, you know, I know we lost, but I just want to say thank you because you spoke up for me. And you fought for them. That's what we do. And that's what makes the system of justice work. And I think that's, it's a good thing. So I generally think that the judges are good. I think I've had the luck of working with a lot of people who ended up being judges, both at Stikeman Elliott and then at Genest Murray and then at Heenan Blaikie.

53And every one of the people that I knew that ended up becoming a judge was a decent person. And they were a smart person and they were a person who cared for their job. I want to, I want to go back to something you said, Pulat, earlier about survival. And I want to disagree with that. I think survival is something that you do, but I think we need to set our sights far higher and better than mere survival. What we need to do is have fun. We need to thrive. We need to feel like we're in charge of our destiny. And I think that's where, when you're, if you're a young lawyer, decide where you want to be and what you want to do and how you want to make your mark and keep that in mind and never waver.

54Until you reach it or don't reach it, because you never, you never always reach your goals. If you do reach your goals, then set new and higher ones, because what this is about is striving to be better, striving to learn, striving to develop. It's constant improvement and learning. And I, I learned something new every day. I learned something new yesterday. I learned something new from listening to you. You always learn and you learn from your colleagues, you learn from your clients and you learn from putting the work in. And I think that's the other thing where I think there's been a big change and I think it's tied in with the pessimism. When I started, I was working at a big firm at Stikeman Elliott.

55It was one of the firms that was considered to be the place where hardworking people were at. And the interesting thing was there were no targets. There were no— no one ever said you have to stay. No one ever said how much time you had to put in. What it was, was you had interesting files and you wanted to do a good job and win them. And they— and and you wanted to be the best lawyer you could be, and you're working with other people who are smart. And let's face it, as lawyers, anyone who can get into a law school is a smart person. We're all smart. And this is a job where you also, if you're a litigator, you want to win.

56You take two smart lawyers, and put them in court on a case, the odds are that they'll end up sawing them off. If you want to do better than that, what you have to do is work harder than the other person. You have to know every aspect of your case, be totally prepared, and throw yourself into it. If that means doing some research to, to find that one case that's going to make the difference, or or thinking about how to cross-examine, or just knowing the file better, you do what it takes because you want to be good. You want to live up to the responsibility of being able to argue a good case. It's not about, you know, I'm sure I gave up some social opportunities to work.

57A lot of times, but I never felt that I was forced to do that. I did it because I wanted to. My colleagues were doing it and I didn't want to let the team down. And I, I loved what I was doing. And, and one of them, I want to mention another thing that I learned from Peter Howard at Stikemans. He said this probably about 30 years ago to me. He said, practicing law is actually an easy thing to do if you're content to be mediocre at it. It's not that hard to master if you're content to be mediocre. But if you want to be really good—

59You have to work hard. And the good lawyers will work hard. You can't work hard at something if you don't love what you do. If you don't at least love or respect the law a bit, like your clients, want to win your clients, and have subject matter of your files that interest you. If you're stuck in a job that is uninteresting, do something different because you won't last if you hate it. And that's the one thing I've seen over the years is is you come back to survival. To me, survival equals succeeding, because if you want to succeed, all you really need to do is like it enough to stick around, and things get better.

60You learn more, you get more competent, because you never forget the lessons you learn along the way.

62What happened was at Genest Murray, we had sort of 3 different areas. We had a commercial litigation group. We had a municipal group. We had an insurance defense group that did a lot of school board and lawyer defense work. And we had a labor practice. And we ended up merging with Heenan Blaikie. So 17 of us went from Genest Murray to Heenan Blaikie, mainly in the commercial litigation and labor groups. The insurance defense lawyers realized that a big firm with high overheads wasn't what their clients as insurance companies would be willing to pay for. Didn't make sense for them because insurance companies crush clients on rates or crush lawyers on rates. So you can't have the expensive overhead.

63The Genest Murray name was, for those around, was a very well-respected firm and name, and they wanted to continue that name out of respect for Genest and Murray. And so they continued. The first Genest Murray partnership wound up, and they used the name to start their new partnership. Continue on. And they've been very successful. And they're, you know, a lot of them, my former colleagues, are again, quality human beings and quality lawyers. They're really smart people. Genest Murray was formed when I was articling. And I remember seeing it. Pierre Genest was one of my heroes from afar. I grew up in Alberta, but I was, it was around the time of the Charter of Rights.

64And the constitutional battles. Pierre Genest was the, I understand he actually wrote the Charter. He was very tight with the federal government. He argued the patriation reference, was a treasurer of the Law Society, fully bilingual and lawyer for Ontario Hydro, a really top-notch lawyer at Cassels Brock. In its first heyday. And all of the Genest Murray lawyers basically came from there, from the litigation group there, and set up this new firm to do things differently, a litigation boutique. And it was an interesting idea, one that had some appeal to me. I went there along along with 3 other colleagues from Stikeman Elliott in '94. Another 2 joined us a couple of years later. And again, it was— what was interesting about it was the different styles that different lawyers had.

65I mentioned Paul Rouleau, who was— you know what Paul Rouleau was like if you've seen him on television. He's incredibly smart, incredibly hardworking, and also very nice, a really nice person who cared for other people. There were some great lawyers. Eric Murray was one of the legends of the, of the bar. He was Canadian bridge champion for 35 years in a row, went to world championships, personal friends with Charles Goren and Omar Sharif, and probably did more appeals in the Court of Appeal than any other lawyer that ever existed. And he didn't really take cases. He took crusades and threw everything into his cases. And he was a sort of old-style curmudgeon. He was a curmudgeon on the outside with a heart of gold.

66The typical, the one thing I remember him saying to me, he called me Motorcar because my initials were BMW. One time he said, "Motorcar, that letter was pretty good considering the source." And it was— he was sort of that type of person who would mix insults with praise, but he said it with a smile and a twinkle in his eye and was just a great lawyer. I remember one case we were bringing an injunction against a bank that had shut down a construction company, a big construction company, 2 weeks before Christmas. And so the— it was an injunction. We ended up getting a temporary injunction and then the matter resolved. But what I remember is the letter we wrote and it was a tour de force of understated but heavily rhetorical excess, understated rhetorical excess, in which he basically said, you realize that there are hardworking families that you're putting out of work just before the holiday season.

67And then at the end of the letter, he added, P.S., congratulations on achieving record-breaking profits for the last quarter. Just to me, a brilliant masterstroke. And that was the type of lawyer he was. He was always thinking and was at this point, he was in his 70s already. And he was also a stickler for the English language and for grammar. Working with Eric Murray, I found myself becoming more and more like him. And it scared me because nobody in Alberta, where I come from, takes care to avoid ending their sentences with a preposition. And he did. And he taught me to speak that way. When I left Genest Murray at the end, and Mr.

68Murray continued on for a few years after that, I realized I'm not Eric. I can't ever be Eric because I don't— my personality isn't well suited to being bombastic. I've tried it at times. I do try it at times. It's a tool, but I'm not— it's not really me. And I think for young lawyers, what you need to figure out, and you don't— you can't figure it out for the first 5, 10, even into 15 years is what is your best self? When or which personality or which you is the most effective? Which one do other people like more and listen to more? And you've got to know who you are because if you're faking it through your whole life, you'll never ever be good at it.

69If you know who you are, figure out what your strengths are and put yourself in a position where those strengths can actually help you. I think that is an important aspect of growing as a lawyer. The first year or so as a lawyer, if you're a litigator, you learn the rules and you learn the cycle of litigation and you learn the interplay. That comes a bit later, man. Until you've done a trial, you don't really know what discovery is about.

71Because you often do the discoveries, your first discoveries in your first years before you even have done a trial. And there are few enough trials, but once you've done a trial, you know what discovery is about and you can do it better after that. So it— so you, you learn the, the cycle of litigation. Then you learn how to deal with clients, how to give opinions, which is a real difficult thing because you don't want to get it wrong. And yet you want to give clients good advice, and you want your clients to be happy, and you want the clients to have a good result. And those 4 or 5 different things pull you in different directions.

72And it's not an easy thing to master. What you have to realize is you can't tell clients what they want to hear. But what you do kind of owe clients is your opinion. And I think as a lawyer, we shouldn't be afraid to give our opinions because they are just opinions. You can be wrong. Other people can disagree. But if you don't have an opinion, you're not really giving your clients what they need. Your job is to help guide them to make better decisions. So once you learn that part and how to deal with clients, then I think, then once you're dealing with clients, you learn more about yourself, you know, which mannerisms, which way of dealing with people is going to get you more clients, is going to get confidence from your clients, and, and which things are not, and which things do you not feel comfortable doing.

73And, and you learn more about yourself, and sometimes there's some, some harder lessons to be learned in that. I I know a lot about my own weaknesses. I keep it a secret. I'm not going to tell you any of them, but I know them, and I try and avoid situations that cause those weaknesses to come to the fore. That's a trick that you do as you get older. The other thing you can do a lot is anticipate. I was listening to Cynthia Kuehl's interview, which was very good. I know Cynthia, and she's a great litigator and a really fully together person. And what she said, and I totally agree with this, is the more experience you get, the more you can see patterns.

74And you have a sense of what's going to happen. And when you have a sense of what's going to happen, the easiest thing to do is to get in front of the parade and try and change the route a little bit. That's really what you do. It's not a predetermined outcome. It's an outcome that is likely, but for your intervention. So your case, when you get to trial, should always be a better case than the case that comes in the door when you start. And we're like symphony conductors. If your trombone is off-key, shelve it. Bring the other parts of the symphony to the fore and and orchestrate the message that you're giving. Avoid focusing on your— the weak parts of your argument.

75You confront them, sure, but tell the story in a different way. Make the issue an issue that you can win on. And that means know when to give in. Don't be too stubborn. Don't insist on arguing everything. Pick your spots. That John Sopinka was widely regarded as one of the great lawyers. What I always heard from everyone about him and saw it was that he had a knack of getting to the point right away and saying things in a very straightforward what's the justice of the case sort of way. I went to the Supreme Court of Canada on his last appeal before he got appointed to the court. It was a Competition Act constitutional case.

76And he started his submissions with, my lords, my ladies, my argument can be summed up in one sentence. The civil remedy provision of the Competition Act is a valid exercise of the general branch of the trade and commerce power. And he said it sort of 3 words at a time so they could write it down. And then as he's doing that, one of the judges says, I suppose you want to see that in our judgment. And Mr. Sopinka nods and says, it's a good set And that sentence was there at the end. That's the essence of good advocacy. And it takes a lot of work to be able to bring things to their essence.

77What is the justice of the case? What is the real argument you want to make? And make a good argument. One good argument is better than three okay ones. Arguments. And sometimes the other arguments detract from the good ones because you can't, you know, keep it simple and focus on what the just result is. There's, I think, an element of the law is not our master as lawyers, as a society. The law is what justice requires. And you win a case by the justice of the case, and the law follows. It's nice to have cases to know what has been convincing to courts in the past. And that helps. But at the end of the day, a judge makes a decision on the case before them.

78and you as counsel can present it in a way that makes as compelling a case as possible. If you focus on what's the real impact on real people of a decision like this that the judge has to make. And I think that's, you know, when you simplify it down, what we're doing as lawyers is helping courts come up with a fair result. That, that's all it is. And, and it's not that complicated. Just have to work hard at it.

80I didn't find that. I stole it. Oliver Wendell Holmes of the US Supreme Court was once asked, do you, as a judge, do you make law? And he said, sure, I made 3 of them this morning. And that's what judges do. And that's what we do. and it's our contribution to society.

82Thank you. Thank you, Pulat. It's been a pleasure.