Law Times

PAGE 2 NEWS OctOber 6/13, 2008 • Law times lawyers take into the profession. Before being called to the bar in 2002 and starting her personal injury practice with Goldstein DeBiase Man- zocco, she spent time as a social worker, and even toiled on an auto parts manufac- turing line, although she admits the later gig was really just "a means to an end." Caza, 35, grew up in Tilbury, a small indsor lawyer Colleen Caza is a shining example of the winding road many town of around 4,500 people that's now part of the municipality of Chatham- Kent. She credits her parents — both blue collar workers — with instilling a strong work ethic that provided the drive to work part-time jobs throughout both her undergraduate and legal studies to attain her lofty goals. While Caza didn't really have any ex- Windsor's Colleen Caza took winding road to the law W BY ROBERT TODD Law Times lawyer came when she articled in 2001 with Raphael Partners LLP lawyer Dalton Charters, who often works on me- diation matters. "It paid for school, and it certainly was an eye opener," she says. She also travelled to Japan for a stint teach- ing English after getting her first degree. posure to the legal business growing up — she recalls that the town had three lawyers; all elderly males — her first inkling that a career in law might be a good fit came when she took a high school law course. She says it was one of the few classes that actually grabbed her attention. "Obviously that's a really broad intro- duction to law, but I was really interested," she says. "I didn't immediately decide I wanted to be a lawyer or anything like that. It just seemed to me that was an interesting course and a possible career choice." The legal seed was planted, but Caza went in a different direction with her undergraduate education, opting to take psychology at the University of Windsor. After graduating, she worked as a social worker, but didn't find the job challenging enough to hold her in- terest for the long term. "It seemed like every time I had a job After applying for law school, Caza opted to stay close to home and attend Windsor's law faculty. While an of- fer also came from the University of Toronto, she wanted to stay close to family. She also planned to settle in Windsor after finishing her law degree, and wanted to make contacts in the area for future employment. One of the ways Caza seems to have tried to stand out at law school is through participation in student organizations. She became the Windsor University Women and Law chairwoman, and also got involved in the clinical law program, through which she spent one semester and a summer at the Legal Assistance of Windsor clinic. "To me, that was very helpful in terms of getting hands-on client experi- ence," says Caza. "You're really helping people who don't have other access to le- gal resources. Pretty much all of the job choices involved dealing with people. That's what I enjoy doing." With Windsor's Women and Law it was really interesting and challenging at the beginning, but . . . there wasn't the passion there after a while," she says. Caza also worked for some time at an auto factory after her undergraduate studies assembling engine parts on trucks. (She returned to work at the plant for one summer during law school.) group, one of Caza's main duties was attracting speakers to talk to students about challenges facing females in the profession. The lecture series was named after former Windsor tax and business law professor Kathleen Lahey, who has also been an influential scholar on gender and law. Colleen Caza finds teaching a civil trial advocacy course a way to keep fresh and enhance 'your own skills.' specifically Shirley Linton, at Goldstein DeBiase Manzocco during those media- tions with Charters, and landed at the firm following her articles. "I was able to see a lot of personal injury cases being mediated," says Caza. "I found that particularly interesting, and it seemed to best merge what I was look- ing for: that I was help- ing people, but I was still doing something that was going to always be changing in terms of what the facts were and what the challenges were on each file." Caza developed a re- lationship with partners, over 27 years, has faced many of the chal- lenges Caza is running up against, and has become an important mentor. "She has a lot of trial experience and Linton, who has been practising for she's able to guide us along and give us advice," says Caza. "I've been able to sort of shadow her along on some files and attend a lot of large mediations, be heav- ily involved in trial prep. She'll just give you tips really frequently on better ways to do things. But in a really friendly way, not in a patronizing way." Caza has also been involved with the ance a busy law practice with raising her two children and credits her husband Dave Gatt, who is a teacher, for making it all possible. That help has been essential, says Caza. She notes that her maternity leave after Alaina's birth was just nine weeks, and she was working on a factum from home the week after Maeve's birth. "He's really been the key for me being able to balance this career and having young children," says Caza. "He's been able to be very flexible, take a lot of time off, and he helps out at home a great deal." She says any young, female lawyer looking to balance home life and work life needs a rock-solid support system. "It doesn't matter whether it comes Caza says one of the most fortunate experiences in her journey to becoming a Ontario Trial Lawyers' Association, and that group has played a big role in easing her transition into the profession over the past seven years. "It's nice to be able to go down the hall and ask somebody questions, but having all those other members able to help you who have a broader range of knowledge and ex- perience than just two or three people, it's made a huge difference," says Caza. That mentorship has been invaluable for the married mother of two young girls, Alaina, 6, and Maeve, 3. She's had to bal- from having a nanny, or having a spouse who's flexible, or having a mother or mother-in-law that is close," she says. "You obviously need the support system in place in order to be able to do the give and take that's required." Caza says it's unreasonable to suggest that clients wait for their lawyer's personal life to be in order before their file gets touched. "It just doesn't work that way," she says. But aside from making sure she's avail- able for clients, Caza has prioritized giv- ing back to the profession. She's a direc- tor of the Essex Law Association, where her main responsibilities surround en- tertainment and social committee work. She is also part of a team teaching a civil trial advocacy course at Windsor law school. She says that experience, which takes up one day a week in the second se- mester, has sharpened her own skills. "It's really nice to reconnect with the students, because they have a lot of enthu- siasm," she says. "It keeps you fresh and on top of knowing what the procedures are and keeps you enhancing your own skills." While Caza is committed to building her practice, she's had to take a break from setting career goals with two young chil- dren waiting for her at home every night. "I'm busy just trying to keep my head above water," she says with a laugh. LT This is the eighth in our Women in Law se- ries that is running in Law Times, featur- ing profiles of female lawyers from around the province. LSUC considers changes to corporate governance structure BY ROBERT TODD Law Times ernance structure, but some bench- ers were reluctant at Convocation to follow a task force' T profession at large for advice. "Our membership doesn't s plan to ask the live governance," said Bencher Brad Wright, who urged Con- vocation to support a separate motion to table the governance task force's report until benchers discussed the issue at a commit- tee of the whole meeting. The task force's plan passed by a vote of 31-16, but not before a he Law Society of Up- per Canada is pondering changes to its corporate gov- lengthy back-and-forth between benchers on its merits. The major- ity eventually agreed to the original motion, which stated, "That Con- vocation approve consultations on principles of governance for the law society with benchers and key members of and other stakehold- ers within the professions, and the associated budget of $95,000 for the consultations." The task force plans to carry out the consultation in two phas- es. It will start with a meeting of benchers "to seek their preliminary views on whether further changes to law society governance beyond those previously approved are war- ranted," read the report. The task force will then talk to "a limited number of lawyers and paralegals, including leaders in the professions and other informed stakeholders." In terms of the cost of the con- sultation, $82,600 will be used to pay for the services of consultant Tim Plumptre, founder of the In- stitute on Governance. It will cost $12,600 in bencher travel expenses and venue costs, stated the report. A majority of the finance com- mittee voted against the budget request before it went to Convo- cation. Wright, a member of the finance committee, called it one of the most "amorphous" requests for money the committee has received. Bencher Bob Aaron said the law society worked on a similar report in the mid-1990s, and suggested it is unnecessary to revisit the issue. "This is a total, utter, and com- plete waste of time," said Aaron, adding the profession and public aren't concerned right now about how the law society is governed. But the majority of benchers took the side of task force chair- man Thomas Heintzman, who ar- gued that a consultation with the profession is vital, if for no other reason than public perception. He noted that benchers will essentially be voting for changes to a board of directors they sit on and suggested any measures taken would lose credibility if the pro- fession wasn't involved. The task force, for example, will be review- ing term limits for benchers. The governance task force has been meeting since May 2006 and Convocation has passed two of its previous reports. Those reports dealt with matters such as the trea- surer's election, strategic planning process, and financial systems. The task force' set out the motivation for consider- ing changes to LSUC's governance. It stated that it's unclear wheth- er the current structure falls in line with amendments made to the Law Society Act in 2006. Those changes introduced "an explicit public interest mandate" the law society wasn't previously saddled with, according to the report. Also cited are concerns about See Consultation, page 5 s September report WHICH DIRECTION IS BEST FOR YOU? RainMaker Group 110 Yonge Street, Suite 1101 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1T4 Untitled-7 1 Tel: 416-863-9543 Fax: 416-863-9757 www.rainmakergroup.ca www.lawtimesnews.com 5/29/08 1:05:49 PM

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