Kathryn Marshall

3You know what, I should probably update that because I did go to a French first language school as a child, but the French has definitely gotten very rusty over the years. So yeah, I was very proficient when I was younger. Actually, we used to have part-time jobs in my early 20s where I was doing tour guides at Rideau Hall, the Governor General's House in Ottawa, and I would get them in French and English and But sometimes people try to hire me for French cases. I definitely don't feel comfortable practicing law in French.

5No, I'm from London, Ontario. And I always wanted— for me, like, my big first passion was politics in life, and I was always like, oh my God, I want to end up in Ottawa. I I want to be near politics. I want to be near Parliament. So when I was in university, in undergrad, I went to Western. I was always looking for jobs in Ottawa and just to spend the summer months. And one summer I got a job working at Rideau Hall when Michaëlle Jean was the Governor General. And yeah, I did so many tours. Like, it was just crazy the number of people who would go through the Rideau Hall. And at that time in my life, I knew Canada's history very, very well.

6Yeah,

8There's this really cool tent room. They call it the tent room, and the entire ceiling it looks like the inside of a circus tent, and it's very cool. It's, it's definitely a surprise. Like, you wouldn't expect a room like that in Rideau Hall, but they have a lot of like big receptions there, and it's, yeah, very neat.

10It's not normal, right? My mom growing up, she was a city councillor for our local municipality And she loved politics. She was very into the Liberal Party. And she used to bring my sisters and I to her council meetings and her different political events. And yeah, we'd be just coming in tow with her. So like, I can remember being like 10 years old sitting in like city council chambers coloring. And I started thinking like, this is kind of neat. And I would start paying attention to what they were talking about. So, yeah, I've been involved pretty much since I was a teenager. I always was involved with the Progressive Conservatives provincially and then the federal Conservatives federally.

11And I don't know if it's just because, like, my mom was a Liberal. I was like, well, I'm not going to be— I'm not going to do what my mom's doing. I'm going to do something different. But I definitely got hooked to just the excitement and the adrenaline and yeah, that's— so that was like my first, my first love, I would say, is politics.

13The, the thing I've always loved about politics is fighting for something that you believe in. And I think that's why I love law as well, and I love litigation. It's not fun if you're not trying to push for something that you believe strongly about. So I've always been passionate about different issues that I've fought for in politics. But I think in Canadian politics, as much as it doesn't feel that way, there, there isn't as much like distinction between the parties as you see in the US and other countries. So the way to get things done, obviously, is to try to get consensus, consensus on some core issues. But like Definitely for me, it's always just been about the fight.

14Like, I love— like, God, I would love— I've worked on about 300 campaigns in my life. I love fighting nomination battles, like election campaigns. The tighter the battle, the more fun. Like, the more underdog my candidate, the more that excites me. I just think I love that act of just fighting and winning. So I would definitely say that I'm more of a fighter in politics than a consensus builder.

16100%.

18Well, I don't view it as a contradiction because for me, the fighting is the means to the end, right? The end being the what I'm— the results I achieve for my clients. And for me, especially with the type of work I do, my clients, for them, you know, it's not just about money. A lot of the times it's about justice. It's about vindication. It's about accountability or making a change for other people. It's about getting their confidence back. And, you know, the fighting is what gets me there. And I think what I meant in that article, in that interview was You know, most people hate conflict. I find actually a lot of lawyers don't like conflict.

19People are naturally just not wanting to be adversarial all the time. So in a job like this where you're immersed in conflict all day, it can be very draining. I do enjoy the— I do enjoy the conflict. I'm not going to lie. What I mean by that is it doesn't bother me. And, like, for me, the harder the fight, the more rewarding it is. And, you know, my parents can definitely say, like, even when I was a little kid, like, nobody wanted to play Monopoly with me because, you know, I was just, you know, I would take every little battle and it just gets, like, really real very fast. But I think what I meant by that is, you know, it is hard fighting all the time and you're always fighting the court system, you're fighting opposing counsel, you're fighting the laws and that, that can be very taxing for sure.

20But then, you know, seeing what happens at the end and that end result is, for me, the best part of the job.

22Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. Like, I don't have the perfect answer. I've tried different things over the years. Like, the biggest thing for me that I've learned is that I need the decompression time. So I don't have work email on my phone. That's one thing. A lot of lawyers are very shocked when I tell them this. They're like, oh my God, how do you run a litigation practice with all these, like, big media clients and stuff happening and you don't have your work email on your phone? And I just say, well, the reality is most emails can wait a little bit. And I found when I had— when I was connected all the time, I was just getting very burnt out.

23You know, you're always on, right? Like, you know, when you're in that fighter warrior mode, your adrenaline is moving, your nervous system is in overload, and you can't be— for me, at least, I couldn't be in that state state 24/7. That's not healthy for me. So I need to have those periods, like on the weekend or in the morning when I'm having my coffee and I'm reading the paper, where I haven't turned on Fighter Kathryn yet. You know, Fighter Kathryn, when she comes to her office and I'm in front of my computer or I'm in court, then it's just like that, that, you know, switch flips and I bring it. But in order for me to have that burst of energy and focus and fight, I need to have the complete downtime.

24So separating my work from my personal life was huge for me. And then I'm just big on like self-care. I do, you know, I like to book spas and just I have, I have hobbies. I think hobbies are really important, things that you gain pleasure from that are not something that you're paid to do. So I would say the email thing is the biggest thing and something I talk about a lot because I tell— I think burnout is not necessary. You can— there's ways you can manage your life. And I always tell lawyers, like, I know we're important, but like, let's put our egos aside. We're not open-heart surgeons. Nobody's— no one's going to die if you don't respond to the email right away.

25They're not. So yeah,

28Yeah you know, it like definitely wasn't something that I woke up one day, I was like, oh, this is what I'm gonna do. It just kind of happened organically. But like, definitely for me, I— my favorite kind of case, I know exactly what it is, and when I see it across my desk, I'm like, I need this. I like— I love a case where It's a big challenge. So like usually there's an underdog, the underdog being my client, and it's going to be a fight. You know, there's, there's a lot at stake and the case has some meaning. It has— it's not just about money. It might impact other people's lives or make a change in the law.

29And I love those types of cases and I'm willing to take them. Often on spec. So I'm willing to take them on pure contingency and I'm willing to put myself out there as the front end of the case and take all the blows. Because when you're sometimes out there fighting on these cases, you become the target of the hate. There are lots of people who, to get at my client, they try to get at me. So you got to be willing to do that. Once I started taking on cases like that, they just lead to more cases because clients like that who are looking for a fighter, if they see a lawyer out there fighting for someone else, they think, oh, well, I'm going to call that person.

30So that's how it happened. And, you know, I don't have capacity to take on like 100 of these cases a year. I do try to take on a few every year and they bring me a lot of gratification and they're just really fun.

32I actually not— I don't love the name of that publication, but there were a few friends who had who ran it. And but Yeah,

34Yeah, when I think of role models in law, I always think of her because she she's a fighter. I've always loved that she, she is a really tough fighter, and she doesn't seem to give a crap about what people think about her. And I love that she's very unapologetic, and she'll take on cases again. She'll take on, you know, she'll take on those underdog cases or those cases where society seems to be totally against her client or against her, and she'll go out there and she'll do her work and she'll be amazing at it. And I really admire that about her. And of course I love— I love fashion, so I love that she has this flair for style too.

35And there's often been this, I think, societal expectation on female lawyers that, okay, we have to be super masculine because this is a masculine industry. And if you're going to be a tough litigator, you can't have pretty nails or crazy hair or wear designer couture. I love that she, again, because she doesn't care what people think about her, she's like, hey, clothes bring me joy. I'm going to wear what I want. I'm the same way. Like, I, you know, I'll wear like pink stilettos to court because it makes me happy. It brings me joy. And I love kind of that feminine side of my personality because I do have a very masculine role. But I, I, I just love how badass she is.

36I have her book in my office. I had her sign it. I went to one of her book launches. And yeah, I've, I've ended up having a few cases against her firm, of course, because I act for a lot of sexual assault survivors. So I've battled it out with her firm before, and lots of great lawyers there.

39I mean, look, when I talk about my, like, my love of fashion, that's not directed at any gender. That's just me talking about something that I personally I know lots of men who love fashion too. I work with one of them, Howard Levitt. He wears more designer than anyone I know. But it's just something that brings me joy. But look, law is a very male-dominated, misogynistic profession. I don't know one single female lawyer that doesn't have just a long line of stories of misogyny or sexism that she faced in the profession. Prior practice, you can go look at any big firm and take a look at who is in the equity partnership, and it's going to be sometimes 80-90% male.

40And it's just simply a fact. It's not my opinion. It's just facts. I think that there was a time in my career where I cared what other lawyers thought of me. I don't care about that anymore. You know, I've had lots of like old male lawyers over the years say very sexist, offensive things to me, and I've always hit back. I just find it amusing now. But I, you know, I think that what I would say to men in the profession is, you know, be a true ally to women. And the way to do that is to not expect them to be just like men. Everyone's got their own, everyone's got their own skill, their own flair, their own talent.

41I used to get a lot of criticism early in my career from always men for, you know, being too aggressive. I think that there still is this expectation that exists for a lot of women in law, that we still have to be appeasing. We still have to be a certain way. You know, women are socialized from childhood to be a certain way, to be nice. And no one ever questions a male litigator if he's really hardcore and aggressive. That's the job. That's a good thing. But for women, we get a lot of criticism for it. So I think that, you know, understanding and acknowledging that would be one thing to keep in mind. But, you know, it's there.

42I see it all the time. And I have plenty of lawyer clients. I act for a lot of female lawyers. The firms don't often know I'm there in the background. But you know, I've seen a lot of horrible stuff. So changes still need to be made.

44Oh, I think every lawyer has a different style. I think law— like, one of the things with law is that it's very subjective. Every lawyer does things a bit differently. I don't think my way is the only way or the best way. It's just the way that works for me and it's always been effective for me. But it's my personality. Like, I, I think where— when I started to be very successful in my job, it's when I really decided to be authentic to who I am. I go out there and I say stuff. I'm on Twitter. I'm saying I'm very opinionated. I am not afraid to talk to the media. There seems to be a lot of lawyers who are like, oh, don't talk to the press on your cases.

45Or if you do, just be very— say one or two things. No, I'm out there and I just I just rip right into it. I don't really follow these rules that seem to exist. And what I would say to any lawyer, whether you're a male or female, is just practice in the way that you feel is the most authentic to who you are. I know lots of great litigators who are not aggressive. My dad was one of them. He's a judge now, but he was a family litigator and he is not an aggressive personality, but he was very strategic in how he did things. He did it his own way. So, but I definitely think that women are socialized to be nice and socialized to be appeasing.

46And that translates into law. And I've been on many cases, actually recently, where, you know, I'm in court and there's like this male senior partner on the other side, and we've been battling it out, you know, this whole case. And I finally meet for the first time his female associate who's been clearly doing all the work. He doesn't let her even say one word in court but brings her to every hearing date and doesn't even introduce her. You know, men in law need to stop doing that. That happens all the time. You know, if you're— if you want to be a true ally, let, let the women shine. Open that door for them, help them, don't, don't push them to the back.

48I don't think that they're at war. No,

50But I think there are many issues that are, are pervasive in society that are gendered and that apply to women. And those are the issues I've always fought for my career, like sexual violence, domestic violence, misogyny. There is femicide that is happening in this country. We have an epidemic of women being murdered in domestic situations. We have a law, a legal system that doesn't take those types of crimes seriously. You know, if you look at like how many missing, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls there are in Canada, That is just— that is sexism, and that's also racism. But in that sense, I think that the men who have run politics in this country for many years have not paid enough attention to these issues.

51So hopefully, as more women become leaders in this country, we can see changes.

53Yeah, so I've always been interested in writing. I started writing when I was in law school, I was— I would write pieces for my law school newspaper. I then started writing. I was practicing law in Vancouver as an articling student, and I started writing for just one of our local, like, daily newspapers. And that just translated into, you know, the thing is, like, the more you write and the more media you do, the more comfortable you get and the more opportunities come your way. So That was always just me pitching ideas and wanting to have a voice and wanting to speak about things that I cared about. And I think probably that experience has helped me, you know, not be intimidated by the media.

54I think where a lot of lawyers get nervous talking to the media is, of course, you're always very scared that you're going to say something wrong or put your foot in your mouth or perhaps say something defamatory or that could get your client in trouble. And, you know, once you've done a bit of media, those anxieties go away a little bit. But for me, what I've learned with the media is that we cannot rely anymore on the court system to get justice. It is dysfunctional. It is actually totally broken. You know, court dates, you're never going to get them. It's years. There was a case the other day I saw in the press about a rapist getting off because there was too many delays in the court system.

55So there, there has to be other ways to get justice for clients. And one of the ways I've discovered is to bring cases into the public sphere. And that is really by necessity, because if you just rely on our court system, in many cases you're not going to get anywhere and you're going to just get your client a giant bill for no results. So I, I use media strategically. I only go to the media probably in a small percentage of my cases. Most of my cases you'll never hear about. But I use it very strategically. And it's always something that the client is very much pushing and comfortable with. I never want to put a case out there if the client is not prepared to be public and front and center as well.

57I mean, I, I'm not really sure what you— look, I think that there's like this view that women's issues and social justice belong to the left spectrum. I think that's probably what you're getting at. I've never subscribed to that. I've always been someone who just I, if I believe in something, that's just my belief. I don't really put myself in a certain— I'm not like, oh, I'm going to be left-wing on all issues or right-wing on all issues. There's lots of issues where I don't agree with the Conservative Party or, you know, the right about. There's lots of issues where I'm probably more leaning to the left, but I also— I'm someone who cares about human rights, but I also care about the freedom to choose.

58I also care about low taxes. I care about, you know, not having my kids funding the debts of my generation. So I'm probably a little bit all over the place, to be honest with you. But yes, it surprises many people when they find out I am conservative politically,

60I'm like, look, I think a lot of— there's so much overlap in law and politics, which is why you see so many lawyers running for office. There's a huge overlap. But look, there's no perfect political system. We have a first-past-the-post democracy system. And actually, I've seen, I've seen studies over the years. Most people don't identify as left or right, and most Canadians actually vote very differently each election. Most, most people are all over the place. And if you only go on Twitter, you would think that, like, we have a society where everyone is just at odds with each other and everyone has really firmly planted beliefs. But it's a very small percentage of people who are out there screaming their views on the internet.

61But I think in Canada, the, the media is And I think that's part of the reason why there is this feeling that everything is really at odds. I've worked on campaigns where I worked on the federal Conservative campaign in 2019. My husband was running the election for the Conservative leader. And so I was very involved in that campaign. And I saw behind the scenes how everything was playing out. And I was, you know, I was there when like the blackface bomb dropped. And I remember at the beginning of the campaign, the media, all, you know, CBC, CTV, all of them said, oh, this is going to be an election about issues. We're going to talk about healthcare.

62We're going to talk about the economy and housing. And what happened during that campaign, literally every single day, the media was focused on what, you know, 10-year-old tweet a political party, you know, dug up from a campaign, another candidate to embarrass them, or, you know, these like trivial issues that didn't really matter, but it was very clickbaity. And the important issues don't end up getting properly addressed in campaigns. Just, they're not sexy. They're not they're not fun to write about, I guess. They don't get enough clicks. So I think the media, we have, you know, they, they are partly to blame for the fact that we just seem to be at odds on these little issues, but the big ones are not being addressed.

64Yeah, I mean, most of my work comes by way of direct referrals to me, and it's really, I think, the result of my profile. So I'm out there fighting on big cases, and so when you're out there, people hear about you and they send work your way. So that is how I've gotten work the past few years. Employment law, you're always going to just have this never-ending cycle of referrals because everybody has problems with their job no matter what. Everybody's got an issue with their boss or their job. You're always going to have that cycle of referrals. But I've really become like— and this is my brand and this is very true to who I am— but I've become that lawyer that if you want to fight, if you want to hire a lawyer to just go to war for you.

65You hire me. If you want to hire a lawyer who's going to quietly write a few letters back and forth and get you a reasonable settlement and just make it all go away, don't hire me. I'm not the lawyer for you. There's lots of lawyers who will do that, but I'm that lawyer if you want to go for a fight. But at the same time, I've got to balance my practice. Like, I can't have every single case in this crazy heated litigation. So I do offset my big litigation files that are in the public sphere and in the media. So they're high stress with more, I would say, like run-of-the-mill employment cases where they're still important.

66I'm still fighting really hard, but they mostly settle. So yeah, it's just, it's all been basically my own marketing efforts. So I will, I always tell lawyers, like, it's, it's not hard to market yourself. You just got to be willing to put yourself out there.

68And yeah, you can't even see my, like, my boxing gloves in the back.

71Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's why I said earlier, I chose— I choose in many cases to take the fight outside of the octagon, right? So, so I primarily act for plaintiffs that I like to act for plaintiffs. That's most of my practice. Big companies would love nothing more than to only have the fight happen in the octagon because they know a few things. Number one, they know that most plaintiffs cannot afford to fight there. It's extremely expensive. Number two, they know that you're, you're unlikely to even get there. And if you do, it'll be many years from now. And number three, they know that no one's really going to go to court and watch what's happening and write about it.

72So it can— even though it's an open court system, it's not going to get out there. So I bypass— I mean, don't get me wrong, I file litigation, I go to court all the time, but I, I also fight in another realm, which is the public sphere. When I talk about that, like, I mean, a lot, for example, I have a lot of cases where we're fighting the government or we are fighting major corporations or we're fighting publicly funded universities. These are entities that there's a big public interest in them and they have a public mandate. And, you know, I fight with everything I do, every email, every letter I write, every tweet I craft, every press conference I have, because it's what— it's that, that constant pummeling, that relentless, never-stopping train that just keeps plowing towards you.

73That does make a lot of defendants eventually give up because there's only so much of that that they can handle. And it's just a fact. And I call it the quicksand effect. So there's really— there's no winning when you're a defendant and you're being publicly shamed and sued. And you've got like a bunch of people on Twitter tweeting at you and you've got people signing petitions for you to do something. And there's this huge public lens on, on your misconduct and your wrongdoing. That is very stressful, and that has nothing to do with the court. That has nothing to do with the courtroom. And so I'm always in advocacy mode, always. And that's not to say that I don't try and cooperate sometimes.

74I mean, I have to now and then, but I'm always in that advocacy mode, always. I'm probably— I'm sure most opposing counsel would describe me as a pain in the ass.

76Thank you for having me on. I don't know if we'll ever be in a file where we can fight. I don't— like I said, I don't do much in the commercial litigation bar.

78I will say this, you know, I'll fight very, very hard, but I will always have a drink with the opposing side later. Like, to me, it's never personal. Unfortunately, I think for some lawyers it does get personal, but I'm always— for me, it's a job, and I, I respect a fellow fighter. If I see that someone fighting hard for their client too, I respect that. So I always love to grab beers with opposing counsel if they'll have me. Sometimes they won't. Some Sometimes they're too upset.

80Thank you.