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Law Times • augusT 23, 2010 Is bilingualism merely a hobby? nly in Canada would the country's top court have to function in two official languages but let the judges who sit on the bench be exempt from hav- ing to be bilingual. Go figure. Why has it never been O legally required for Supreme Court of Canada justices to be as bilingual as their court pretends to be? Is the court there to provide jobs for judges or give Canadians a chance to plead their case in the of- ficial language of their choice as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution claim? Take the lower courts. All judges of the Federal Court bench have to be bilingual; so do all of those who sit on the Tax Court of Cana- da bench. There's been no problem finding good bilingual talent to fill those jobs. But what about the Supreme Court? We can't have a bilingual requirement there. Opponents of such a requirement fear it might limit job advancement for someone who's prominent. Per- haps language is not a skill in this country? Is it a leisure activity then? That's some hobby, especially since there are 3,850 bilingual law- yers and judges across Canada from whom to pick the members of the bench. So how does it all fit with the Charter and the Constitution? Don't all Canadians have a right to be heard in the official language of their choice? Perhaps someone will argue that the right to be heard in your own language doesn't include the right to be understood by the judge in the same language. NDP MP Yvon Godin, a proud bilingual Acadian, figured last year that it was high time to remedy that oversight and make the Supreme Court respect the Charter and the Constitution and conform to the bilingual standards of the lower federal courts. So he introduced a private mem- ber's bill in the House of Commons to make it law that all future ap- pointments to the Supreme Court be for bilingual judges. The bill sneaked through the House of Commons in a close vote. It's now before the Senate where it's sparking a storm of controversy. The big anti-bilingual lobby is awake and putting a lot of pressure on Prime Minister Stephen Harp- er's government. The controversy blew up at the Canadian Bar Association confer- ence last weekend, and Harper is caught up in the mess. He doesn't control the Senate and can't stop the vote. Several Conservative sena- tors, especially those appointed by Brian Mulroney, aren't the least bit anti-bilingual. The debate is heating up. A lot of unilingual lawyers in this coun- try believe they shouldn't have to speak both official languages to have a crack at the bench of the top court some day. The notion among some lawyers that they could lose out on the ulti- mate plum just because they're not The Hill By Richard Cleroux bilingual doesn't sit well with them. Harper seemed to go along with Godin a year ago when it was Nova Scotia's turn for a seat on the Su- preme Court bench. Harper had no trouble finding the best bilingual candidate, Thomas Cromwell. But it was different back in 2006 when Harper appointed a unilin- gual judge, Justice Marshall Roth- stein of Manitoba, to the Supreme Court bench. Rothstein was a spe- cial case. He was Vic Toews' former law professor. Anybody who can teach law to Toews deserves a Su- preme Court appointment. Rothstein is a good judge. He knows his law but he has a severe handicap. He speaks only one lan- guage in a court that works in both English and French. In Rothstein's presence, the oth- er eight judges have to deliberate in English, even when discussing cases that were conducted in French. Rothstein is the only unilingual judge among eight colleagues. Sometimes he takes a pass on cases where there may be a lot of French spoken. That reduces the bench to eight. To avoid a tie, they reduce the bench to seven. That means a heavier workload for the judges, some of whom find the job demanding enough as it is. Godin says it's critical for judges of the Supreme Court to be able to un- derstand what is being said and not have to rely on a court translator. Retired Supreme Court justice John Major, a unilingual Calgarian, questions that. He says translations are good enough for judges. He says that when he was on the bench, he had no trouble because the court translators were excellent. Official Languages Commission- er Graham Fraser chimes in that per- haps a unilingual judge isn't in the best position from which to assess the quality of court translations. Godin insists that by definition, the judges of the highest court in a bilingual land should speak both languages and not just a few of them, but all of them. To have a fair hearing, accord- ing to Godin, you need judges who know the law in both languages. Translation just doesn't cut it. Godin has the bilingual judiciary on his side, many provincial bar as- sociations, and, understandably, all of the French-language jurists' asso- ciations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia. He has the premiers of several prov- inces with him as well. Nevertheless, the vote at the CBA event last week shows we have yet to see what the final judgment will be. LT Richard Cleroux is a freelance report- er and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux @rogers.com. COMMENT PAGE 7 Introducing client-centric thinking to your practice BY CATHERINE MITCHELL For Law Times but they are gaining in momentum and they are crystal clear. Know your clients. Invest in them. Take risks for them. Your clients do this every day in their own roles and business operations and they expect it from their service providers. But how can you do this when you lead with your agenda? What is client-centric thinking and how you can bring it to your practice? Client-centric thinking begins with under- standing the clients' perspective and what they need. It means suspend- ing your own agenda and what you want to sell until you've heard — really heard — what the client needs and wants. Then, it's about aligning your agenda with theirs so that you build mutually profitable relationships. Here's how it looks in action. I attended an industry trade show recently with one of my lawyer clients. The purpose for my atten- dance was to show my client how to meet exhibitors at this trade show and identify those with whom it makes sense to pursue a further conversation. I started by taking a genuine interest in learning about the person I was speaking with. I didn't lead with my role, my company or anything about me. I listened for a point of connection between us and then explored it. The point of connec- tion was natural and not forced. Most people like talking about themselves, so give them the opportunity to. When you do, there's a whole lot of information they're willing to give you if you're listening. Where there was a connection, I intro- duced myself and my intentions for speaking with them. When there was no connection, I didn't do so. I walked away from two hours on the trade show floor with four real contacts and four real reasons to have another conver- sation. Each of these four contacts felt heard and agreed to a followup conversation. Do your clients think you hear them? Ac- T cording to the BTI Consulting Group Inc.'s 2010 corporate counsel trends report, only 36.7 per cent of in-house lawyers surveyed be- lieve their firms are working with them through the recession. This means they believe 63.3 per cent are not. According to a Canadian Corpo- rate Counsel Association panel discussion held Web Correspondence POLICE DID 'ZERO' TO HELP THREATENED LAWYER I agree with the article's message and the editorial that appears elsewhere. I know of lawyers who have been threatened. They are involved in family law files, and it seems that those courts are more danger- ous than even the criminal or civil courts. I have experienced two serious threats stemming from contentious civil matters that involved large sums of money. One was in writing, and the police "lost" the original threat. It was a horrible experience that caused me to go about the business of trying to obtain a firearm for protection. I would have had to have broken the law to do it, so I merely lived in fear, as did my family and client. The per- son that issued the threat was well known for vio- lence by police. They did zero to assist. Comment on lawtimesnews.com by Martin D. Fineberg about "Lawyers suffering violence alone." www.lawtimesnews.com he messages from corporate counsel associations and panel discussions about what clients want are not new Speaker's Corner in Toronto late last year, the majority continue to agree that outside counsel haven't developed and implemented any innovative business practices in the past five years. How do you think they measure your cli- ent centricity? Even if they're not conscious of it, your clients are measuring your client- centric effectiveness in two ways: by what you do and how you do it. Yet they'll remember you equally, and likely more, for how you made them feel while you did what you did for them. Remember that your clients have business problems with legal aspects, not legal problems. They want to know you get them. But can you truly implement client-centric thinking? I believe you can. It starts with you and understanding what your clients want from you as their legal services provider. Lever- age the findings from the various surveys and reports, such as the In-House Counsel Ba- rometer and the Cana- dian Lawyer annual corporate counsel survey, by road-testing them with your clients. Be genuinely interested in them and their busi- ness. Ask questions. You won't appear inferior by doing so. In fact, when I asked the panel of corporate counsel speakers at the Toronto event what they thought about counsel asking them about their business, they replied: "Ask- ing questions tells me you're interested; it's part of building our relationship. The kinds of questions you ask me will differentiate you." So what are you waiting for? How, then, you can bring greater client- centric thinking to your practice? Start by acknowledging that you have at least two kinds of relationships to develop and manage at any given time: one with the file and one with the person at the other end of it. Then, at every touch point with the file, leverage it to learn more about your clients, including their preferences, their agendas, what's im- portant to them, and what's going on in their organizations and industries. Next, look at the relationship plans you have for your top clients. Do they involve a laundry list of ways to get in front of them and tell them how good you are or do they identify ways to learn more about them? Finally, start to notice whose agenda you're leading with — yours or theirs. LT Catherine Mitchell is a client development skills coach and principal of One Voice Productions Inc. She can be reached at 416-562-3711 or coach@onevoiceproductions.ca. DO LAWYERS NEED SPECIAL PROTECTION? I thought this was an excel- lent article. I never realized that this was such a pervasive issue. I can't recall ever hearing about a report from a lawyer during my time on the job, so if this is occurring as frequently as the article sug- gests, lawyers are definitely suffering in silence. As a former police officer, I can say that the police have no protocol in place to deal with situations involving lawyers any differently or more swiftly than situations involving anyone else. It seems perhaps that's due to ignorance of the issue. I wonder if lawyers could be classified as an identifiable minority group for the purpose of having cases like the ones described investigated as hate crimes. That would bump up the level of response. In the service I worked for, a hate- crime designation meant it automatically went to a detective for a thorough investigation as op- posed to a patrol officer. Comment on lawtimesnews.com by Simon Borys about "Lawyers suffering violence alone."