Got interesting responses to the above—for some of us, Law School was at the end of a winding path.
If you missed the original piece, click here, ie No. 1.
Last week, No. 2, click here.
With permission, posting three more responses below.
Next up:
- Sherie Verhulst, Legislative Counsel, B.C. Attorney General
- Kate Symonds, Department of Justice Canada
- Greg Pun K.C., retired
No. 4 next week.
“Hi Eugene,
I love hearing stories about how one ends up being whomever one is… Here’s an excerpt from the biography I use whenever I give presentations, slightly edited and followed by a postscript.
—
I never intended to be legislative counsel. My first choice of vocation, at the age of 4, was to be an elf, specializing in tracking rabbits through the Northern Ontario bush. But, as I was finishing [secondary school] and trying to decide where to go from there, I discovered that, oddly, there wasn’t much demand for rabbit trackers. I turned instead to criminology. After all, tracking weasels rather than rabbits was close to the original goal, even if the elf bit didn’t quite work out.
By accident, my criminology degree … led to law school …. While researching my undergraduate thesis—an analysis of mens rea in criminal negligence—I decided that the law of homicide needed serious reform and so I aimed to do a Masters of Criminology. My advisor suggested law school, first, to gain some credibility before I went about damning the law.
I hated law school. No, despised it. No, completely loathed it. That is, except for two seldom-offered electives in statutory interpretation and legal drafting. Oh, how FUN! Tracking words through the dense tangle of language! Life became even better when my professor Randy Graham, amused at the joy I derived from puzzling over the placement of punctuation, told me, “You know, you can get paid to do this stuff!!!”
After articling …, then doing brief stints as a barrister, an analyst, and then a solicitor, I finally arrived at the B.C. Office of Legislative Counsel … I draft mostly health, agriculture and safety legislation. All are remarkable and fascinating, even if it does mean spending my days learning and writing about disease, sewage, compost and other vaguely repulsive subject matter.
…. These days, I am focusing on non-academic pursuits, such as playing hockey. I have no talent for it, but a good sense of humour goes a long way—as does full-body protective padding. And, I’m planning my retirement—volunteering, sketching, lots of hockey. Of course, I have not forgotten my roots as an elf. When I can, I’m out in the forests of British Columbia, hiking, enjoying the scenery—and looking for rabbits. . .
Postscript:
As I was cleaning out boxes a year ago, I discovered some of my old papers from grade school. One box contained high school essays—one discussed the limits of state power in a world where electronic surveillance was just becoming “a thing”; another explored the regulation of drug use as a health issue rather than a justice issue. It seems that I was drawn intuitively toward “rule of law” principles even as a teenager, although I’d never heard the term before.
In another box, I found a short paragraph written by a very young me in primary school observing that the [then-new] Charter of Rights meant that, “when rules get made, they have to pass the constitutional mustard”. Here I am now, writing legislation—I can’t help but wonder whether, so long ago, I actually had a vague sense of what it meant for laws to pass constitutional muster, or was simply very confused about why we suddenly had such high standards for condiment etiquette…
Maybe becoming a lawyer was not a mistake, but fate coming to a conclusion…
Warmest regards,
Sherie.”
Thank you: Sherie Verhulst, B.C. Attorney General, sverhulst@shaw.ca.
“Eugene,
I also went to law school by mistake!
I studied English and thought I would get my MA and eventually be a professor of English – but it didn’t quite feel right. I went to a university fair for various master’s programs, had one brief meeting with the then Dean of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Bruce Feldthusen, went home and enthusiastically told my father that I needed his credit card to pay for an online application to the French Common Law Program. Thankfully, my Dad humoured me and handed over the card. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw I was accepted. Started with a small firm in Ottawa – fast forward 15 years and I am now with DOJ.
When I was an articling student in 2010, I attended a CPD session you led in Ottawa on legal writing and how to be a good lawyer. Still remember it and still working at applying those principles in my work every day.
Kate.”
Thank you: Katherine Symonds, Department of Justice Canada, katherine.symonds@justice.gc.ca.
“Hi Eugene,
I am not sure that I can qualify for membership in the “law school by accident” club, and (to misuse Groucho Marx’s great adage) I would not want people to not join a club that would have me as a member.
I am perhaps less “law school by mistake” and more “law school under false pretenses”.
My father, himself an MD (radiologist) very much wanted me to be the same. But I so nearly failed the prerequisite organic chemistry course that I actually had to drop it before receiving the F. So there was no prospect of medical school for me.
I was not willing to get an actual job, and I knew that he would fund additional university so long as it was in a professional discipline. Medicine was already out, and I have shaky hands so dentistry was out. I am not good with math, so that eliminated accounting and engineering. That left law, and fortunately I was marginally literate – thus law school for me.
Not exactly “by mistake”, but not because of any higher calling. Fortunately, I actually liked law and turned out to be pretty good at it, both school and practice.
Greg.”
Thank you: Greg Pun K.C., gspun17@gmail.com.