Law Times

Page 2 March 9, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com In case anyone is wondering why someone with just two years of work experience in the legal profession wants a seat at Convo- cation, Austin said she wonders why lawyers who haven't been in law school for four decades have been making decisions about ar- ticling and legal education. Austin said she was in her final year of law school when the law society embarked on the articling debate. "It was very clear to me and it was very clear to many of my peers at the time that the dis- cussions that were being had and the people who were having those discussion were very far removed from the articling process and the experiences of articling students," she said. "It was very frustrating at the time," she continued. ". . . We were saying, 'Is anyone talking to us? Is there someone down at the law society who understands what's going on?'" For some of the incumbent candidates like Bencher Raj Anand, the appeal in running again is to be part of the immi- nent change at Convocation. Anand, who's running for a third term, admitted he was one of those who advocated for a two-term limit for benchers and noted he struggled "almost daily" with the decision to put himself forward again. "This is quite honestly true: I decided to run because I saw it as an opportunity to see a criti- cal mass of younger and more diverse benchers in Convoca- tion," said Anand. Bencher Janet Leiper, who's part of the working group that investigated the issues faced by minority licensees, is teaming up in the election with Isfahan Merali, counsel with the Con- sent and Capacity Board and a public interest lawyer. "Janet decided to take a step past mentorship of new candi- dates and actually champion new candidates," said Merali, who's part of the law society's equity advisory group. According to the law society's report on racialized licensees, many non-white lawyers ended up in sole practice due to their sense of alienation and lack of op- portunities despite feeling unpre- pared to hang their own shingle. Lawyer Henry Chang noted he was one of those lawyers. He not- ed his career had taken a "more zigzag" path compared to some of his colleagues after he had trouble finding work at law firms when he finished his articles. "For many of us, that's what led us to start our own practice; it's lack of oppor- tunities," he said, noting he had to build a reputation and client base for himself as a sole practitioner for 18 years before joining his cur- rent law firm, Blaney McMurtry LLP, where he's now co-chairman of the firm's international trade and business group. "The bottom line is I've ex- perienced all of the barriers that are described in the report by the law society," said Chang, add- ing that while he'd like to think things had improved over the last 20 years, the law society report is proof the challenges still exist. Those challenges include feel- ing like you're "not a real law- yer," said Gilbertson Davis LLP lawyer Lee Akazaki, who's also a candidate in the election and a former president of the Ontario Bar Association. His career path wasn't always the easiest, said Akazaki, add- ing he always felt he had to work twice as hard as many of his col- leagues. "It's a path along which all of us in this room have had to travel not so much because it's a typical career but because, de- spite our efforts, despite our tal- ents, despite our creativity, we're made to feel, or we feel, like we're not real lawyers because of the colour of our skin," he said. Other minority candidates in the upcoming bencher elec- tions include Douglas Sander- son, an associate law professor of Cree background at the Uni- versity of Toronto; Joanne St. Lewis, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa; Missis- sauga, Ont., lawyer Harry Mann; Ministry of Attorney Gen- eral lawyer Sandra Nishikawa; Tanya Walker of Walker Law PC; Brampton, Ont., lawyer Raj Sharda; and Dianne Corbiere of Nahwegahbow Corbiere Ge- noodmagejig in Rama, Ont. Incumbent benchers Jeffrey Lem, Avvy Go, and Jack Braith- waite are also seeking re-elec- tion this year. LT NEWS system. This is how people get their business." Since she and her husband took over as owners of Diamond and Diamond, Zisckind says the firm has opened up 11 locations for a total of 12 offices across Ontario. While people in Toronto have access to many personal injury law firms, those in other regions are out of luck if the few lawyers avail- able won't take their cases, says Zisckind. "Our mandate has always been to serve the public and our mandate has been to serve the public in the best possible way and we're consistently looking at better ways to do it," she adds. "By having those locations in the areas we have them, we're mak- ing it easier and more accessible for people. It's all about the people and being accessible to them." But with eight lawyers (a number that will grow to 10 by the end of May), how is the firm able to staff 12 offices? Diamond and Diamond lawyers work out of all 12 offices, according to Zisckind, who notes the firm hires licensed paralegals at some of its locations. "We use the offices when we need the offices; it's as simple as that. We're a paperless firm, so we can work from anywhere. So the law- yers can work from Sault Ste. Marie, they can work from Thunder Bay, they can work from Sudbury," she says. It's not uncommon to have several offices for a firm of Diamond and Diamond's size, Zisckind notes. "I think every personal injury law firm in Toronto does [have other offices] and all my competition has other offices as well," she says. "I think people single us out because we're the most visible, but certainly all of my competitors and all the competition have different office locations and different offices they work out of." In December, the firm opened offices in Sault Ste. Marie and Mississauga, Ont. "Our expansion is a ref lection of the increased de- mand for proper compensation among personal injury victims," said Jeremy Diamond in an announcement. And again last month when the firm opened new offices in Peterbor- ough and Kitchener, Ont., Diamond said it was responding to demand. "Victims across the province have been reaching out to our team and we've expanded to answer their calls for proper compensation," he said. But others in the personal injury bar are more reluctant to call Diamond and Diamond's new offices an actual expansion. "A lot of personal injury firms, and some of the people we think highly of, have opened up satellite offices," says Toronto personal in- jury lawyer Darcy Merkur of Thomson Rogers. But he won't call all of it an expansion. "Many personal injury law firms like mine will go anywhere in On- tario to meet claimants. So whether you have a satellite office or not is kind of irrelevant to that consideration unless you're really stationed and operating out of a specific city, which is generally not the case with a lot of these law firms that say they have offices in 12 different cities," he says. "Having access to office space in different areas does not in my mind result in expansion other than as a marketing play," he adds. "They've expanded their marketing initiatives to areas outside of Toronto, but at the end of the day, people should be looking for the lawyer that has the credentials to assist them throughout their trial and their case where warranted and you have to look at proven track records based on objective, verifiable information as opposed to marketing campaigns which boast or brag about credentials." LT Untitled-1 1 2015-02-04 1:53 PM The only thing harder than fi nding the right legal document is losing it and trying to quickly fi nd it again. With WestlawNext Canada, the information you fi nd remains found – and organized. Effortlessly drag and drop key cases and documents into folders. Easily highlight and annotate documents as you go. Discover more at westlawnextcanada.com 00227MO-A49100 HELPING YOU TO BE MORE EFFICIENT, EFFECTIVE AND CONFIDENT. Continued from page 1 Diamond and Diamond Articling debate spurred young lawyer to run Continued from page 1

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