Law Times

LAW TIMES / JULY 14/21, 2008 NEWS Bucci serves community and piles up accomplishments BY ROBERT TODD Law Times S mall towns in Ontario fight- ing to keep legal services may want to give Kristen Bucci a call for advice on luring law grads. Bucci, 41, has carved the kind niche that many law students dream about when getting into the profession but see slip away as debts pile up and Bay Street ap- pears as the only sensible option. Now practising for the Thunder Bay firm Buset & Partners LLP, she's used her drive to become a successful professional on her own terms to serve her community and pile up some impressive accom- plishments — both at the office and at home — along the way. Last year, she received the Ontar- io Justice Education Network Chief Justices' Award for her creation of a Law Day committee while presi- dent of the Thunder Bay Law As- sociation. Under Bucci's guidance, the committee set up mock trials, poster contests, courthouse tours, and other activities to raise aware- ness of the province's legal system. Bucci has remained involved with OJEN, helping create an adopt-a-school program in which schools are paired with a local law- yer who's available, for example, to give speeches on the law. "The mock trials have been re- ally successful; the schools just love them," says Bucci, who also is part of the provincial executive of the County and District Law Presidents' Association as a representative of the northwest region. "That's one of the things I'm most proud of." Bucci, 41, was born in Red Rock, a small town about an hour east of Thunder Bay, and has lived in northwestern Ontario her whole life. She has two children, Kenne- dy, 12, and Sydney, 9. She says it was in Grade 7 that she chose law as her profession, ("I think back then it probably seemed glamorous," she says.) Her parents — her dad a university English lec- turer turned college administrator, and mom a stay-at-home mother who later became a bank branch manager — made it clear that a uni- versity education was mandatory. "I didn't deviate from that," she says. "You know how some kids take a year off to find themselves — I didn't do any of that." She spent just two years as a politics undergrad at the Univer- sity of Ottawa, then moved on to Osgoode Hall Law School, where she graduated in 1991. After articling at the Mississauga Law Firm of Pallett Valo LLP for fi- nancial reasons and to take her bar admission course, Bucci returned to Thunder Bay to work at the firm Shaffer Jobbitt, where she re- mained for only 10 months before moving on to take over a retiring lawyer's sole practice. She practised on her own for 10 years before shifting in Janu- ary 2003 to join Buset & Partners, where she practises family law. Bucci credits top Thunder Bay family law lawyers Doug Shaw and Patrick Smith — both now Supe- rior Court judges — for mentoring her as a sole practitioner. "Thunder Bay is a very small community, and one of the things I actually really like about practising here is my files are with the same handful of lawyers every single time," she says. Bucci also credits her assistant, Teresa Steinhaeusser, for pinch- hitting as a nanny when her chil- dren were born. Bucci was able to take only two weeks off after giv- ing birth, with the risk too strong of losing clients. She set up an of- fice nursery until each child was six months old. That's when Steinhaeusser, who has been with Bucci for 16 years and is called "auntie" by the kids, lent an extra hand. "She's fantastic. During that pe- riod of time, not only was she my assistant, but she was my nanny. If I had to go to court, she stayed with the girls," says Bucci. Bucci's children also came along to settlement meetings. "It was fun. We had a great time," she says. "I think they're very adaptable kids as a result." While the makeshift nursery was a godsend for a busy sole practitioner, Bucci says it also seemed to help her clients. "Family law clients tend to be going through one of the worst experiences of their lives at the time they are coming to see me, and a lot of my clients felt really calmed by the fact that my kids were there. They would come in and ask to hold them." As a woman in private practice who faced exactly the kind of chal- lenges the Law Society of Upper Canada hopes to ease with mea- sures in its recently approved re- port on women in private practice, Bucci backs the governing body's efforts to aid females. LSUC plans to create a parental leave benefit, worth up to $3,000 a month for three months, and a locum service. "I know that when I was go- ing through all of that, if someone had offered me $3,000 a month, I would have jumped at it." Bucci wrote CDLPA's response to the law society's licensing and accreditation task force report, and says many of LSUC's current initiatives are linked. The graying of the bar is another challenge for rural centres, she notes. Creation of a law school in northern Ontario, such as a pro- posal by Lakehead University, could help, she says. Bucci suggests the problem for women — and many men also — begins in law school, where students rack up massive debts that filter them to big-name firms where salaries are as much as triple those offered in areas like Thun- der Bay. She says many lawyers who work for large urban firms are forced to work longer hours to keep on top of their files. "The smaller centres need to DD LT RXQTI-02 Generic ad 6/27/08 3:55 PM Page 1 have some sort of . . . assistance in letting students know how great it is to practise in a smaller cen- tre," says Bucci, who prioritizes attending her children's hockey Kristen Bucci decided in Grade 7 she wanted to be a lawyer. games, going to the gym, reading adventure novels, and travelling. Those students would do well to look at Bucci as an example of just how great it can be to set up shop where there's more to life than the billable hour. LT This is the first in our new Women in Law series that will be running in Law Times this summer, featur- ing profiles of female lawyers from around the province. PAGE 3 Dye & Durham is your source supplier ONE Dye & Durham BASICS® 2009 Time Travellers Guide has arrived! Includes Pink Ribbon and Environmentally Preferred 2009 Daily Diaries, Planners, Calendars and more. Also includes a complimentary 2009 Vacation Planner. 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A.N 1-800-265-8381 Ontario arguably most closed court system in country 'Gut feelings' often trump open courts P For Law Times ublic access to court- rooms and court re- cords is one of the "hallmarks of a democratic society," stressed Superior Court Justice David Mc- Combs when he granted a media application to release a 2007 videotaped police inter- view with Paul Bernardo. "Unless the press has ac- cess to court information and exhibits, they are unable to provide the information to the public," he stated in the ruling issued on June 10. McCombs rejected a re- quest by the Crown that DVD copies be destroyed after broadcast and that the media be limited in its right to post the entire interview on its news web sites. The judge accepted argu- ments by media lawyer Iain MacKinnon that the internet is a legitimate format for news distribution and there should not be re- strictions on access of the interview, which was an exhibit in the retrial of Robert Baltovich, who was acquitted of the murder of Elizabeth Bain. While internet access and the fear the video could end up on sites such as YouTube are rela- tively new issues for judges to consider, Mc- Combs was simply applying long-standing open court principles set out by the Supreme Court for more than two decades. Open courts have been described as a "core val- ue" that is as central to the justice system as other fundamental principles such as the presumption of innocence. The Supreme Court decisions are far from ambiguous, yet with a few notable exceptions they do not appear to be applied on a consistent basis at the trial court level in Ontario. As well, the Ministry of the Attorney General has imposed numerous restrictions on access that arguably have made Ontario the least open court system in the country. "It is difficult, if not im- possible to ascertain, why it has been and still is, a titanic struggle in this province, to ensure the open court principle is understood and adhered to," says Lorne Honickman, a lawyer at McCague Peacock Borlack McInnis & Lloyd LLP, who often acts for the media. "Gut feelings that it's just not right to make ex- hibits accessible continue to rule the day," notes Honickman. "That is why the release of the Bernardo video is so important. It provides a tiny step for- ward down the path to the eventual deconstruction of these myths," he says. "The experience with the Bernardo video shows that the sky does not fall simply because the media are able to inform the public about what happens in our courts," says MacKin- non of Chitiz Pathak LLP. "There may still be le- gitimate journalistic ethical issues about whether such a video should be broadcast, but on the facts of that case, it should not be a legal issue," he says. In less high-profile proceedings, it is com- mon for judges in Ontario to make a passing reference to Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Bastarache too 'anti-freedom,' say libertarians For Law Times OTTAWA — A conservative le- gal foundation that wants more "pro-freedom" decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada has compiled a critical look at outgo- ing Justice Michel Bastarache, say- ing he was on the wrong side of the fence too many times. And — as Bastarache's June 30 retirement date neared — specula- tion mounted that an appointment to replace him with a prominent judge on the Court of Appeal of Newfoundland and Labrador could give finally give women a majority on the country's highest court. Of 37 cases in which Bastarache participated, he was a "weak" sup- porter of fundamental freedoms and was on the "pro-freedom" side only 56 per cent of the time in non- unanimous decisions, says a report from a study by Chris Schafer, a director of the Canadian Constitu- tional Foundation, and foundation researcher James McLean. Despite the negative side, from the foundation's perspective, the study nonetheless found Basta- rache was a "strong supporter" of freedom in decisions involving economics and equality, taking the "pro-freedom" side more than 80 per cent of the time. The foundation has been contro- versial, under attack for challenging the ban on private medical care in Canada and also facing criticism for supporting a decision by the Harper government to cancel funding of court challenges by minorities. Schafer, once an assistant to for- mer Reform Party leader Preston Manning, admits in an interview the foundation would have backed Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his failed court challenge of campaign spending limits under the Canada Elections Act. Harper lost the 2000 case, Harper v. Canada, when he was president of the National Citi- zens Coalition and attempted to get third-party limits struck down as an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech under s. 2. "In that case, we would argue that they would have thrown out the law and allowed free speech to reign during elections," Schafer tells Law Times. Despite that position, Schafer denies the foundation is intent on influencing any government when it comes to making appointments to the Supreme Court. "Personally I would be happy, the foundation would be happy and would fulfill its goals, if every Supreme Court justice saw as his or her role to fulfill the constitu- tional obligations of safeguarding individual freedom, equality be- fore the law and economic free- dom," he tells Law Times. Schafer is a lawyer and registered lobbyist with Gowling Lafleur Hen- derson LLP in Ottawa. He was called to the bar in Ontario in 2006 and prior to that he worked with the conservative Fraser Institute in Vancouver, the Cato Institute in Washington, and for Manning as a political intern for a summer. Ezra Levant, another former back-roomer with the Reform Party in Ottawa who took on the Alberta Human Rights Commission after he published the infamous Danish car- toons lampooning the Islamic spiri- tual figure Mohammed, is a member of the foundation's advisory board. Schafer said the foundation, Too bad it hasn't been paid for. Visit titleplus.ca or call 1-800-410-1013 for more information To apply for one of these positions, please visit StaffJob_LT_July14_08.indd 1 www.clbmedia.ca/index.php/Careers.html www.lawtimesnews.com 7/9/08 4:30:28 PM Inside This Issue 3 Never Lie to Media 6 Friedland Enterprises 9 Focus On Municipal & Planning Law Quote of the week A Call 416.223.5991 I . InHouse Editor Canadian Lawyer InHouse is looking for a new editor. The candidate will be responsible for the editorial direction of the publication as well as writ- ing for all publications in the legal group. The position requires business re- porting experience and the ability to develop and guide a magazine in a competitive marketplace. A journalism degree and at least three years of journalism experi- ence are required. Attention to detail, excellent editing skills, ability to work with freelancers, and talent for creating interesting copy under tight deadlines are a must. 4STUDENTS Vol. 3 • Issue 1 • March 2008 OCI survival guide On-campus interviews are just like speed dating. An insider's view Clerking with judges at a court gives students the rare opportunity to work behind the scenes. There's no life like it There's lots of opportunity for adventure in the Judge Advocate General branch of the armed forces. Violin overture for Dalhousie student After 20 years crafting fine musical instruments, Andrew Kirk is adding a new note to his life. A rose by any other name The great JD v. LLB debate is burning hot and bright at Canada's law schools. But is one really better than the other? a vol.3 • issue 4 • 08.08 INHOUSE News and trends for corporate counsel left to right: Richard F.D. Corley, Fred Crooks, Daniel F. Gallivan MOVING ON UP How to successfully move up to the C-suite OUTSOURCING GROWS IN COMPLEXITY As more deals go sour, contractual work and agreements are evolving INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT A look at Canada's challenging auto sector DOCUMENT RETENTION Retaining e-documents without losing your mind A collaborative, cost-eff ective connection July 2008 July 2008 $7.00 PRATTE -À-PORTER Guy Pratte has earned the atte Hitting the high notes reputation as the go-to guy if you're about to face an inquiry or Royal commission. PM#40766500 PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT # 40766500 W e ' r e a y C n a n a d i n o m p a

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