In the beginning…
I am skilled at deceiving others, including myself, especially when spiraling into substance misuse oblivion, dolefully and abruptly ending my illustrious, tab-and-robes, litigation career at barely midlife. At least now, I no longer heave vociferously at the sight of work email, but I remain unable to pass through the tempered, glass door bearing my name. Incredibly, none of this materialized until I reached forty-five, after which everything in my life imploded spectacularly. At fifty, I had sunk to my nadir, so I retired, but not by choice; forcibly, if you will, at the hands of my dewy addictions. My odyssey will confound you; certainly, I remain sadly dazed, feebly tapped out of the law mercilessly and decisively.
The beginning: at the zenith of Y2K hysteria, I plunged greenly, Mitch McDeere style, into Bay Street pugilism, at the now defunct, steeped-in-tradition, ranked top five nationally, Ogilvy Renault. Nestled into a cloned mid-rise, unimbued flat, brown TD tower darkening Toronto’s titular lawyers’ row, the office tower was popularized decades later as the faux Manhattan headquarters of the venerable Harvey Specter, and where solicitor Gary Hoy posthumously earned a Darwin award for tragically lunging to his demise demonstrating the impenetrability of the twenty-fourth-floor windows.
A coveted ivory tower job, where the rubber truly hits the road, will reveal the mettle of every devil-may-care, abecedarian attorney. Work neverendingly and trade in your soulful ipseity to revel in clover, so long as you toe the line and ask few, if any, questions. Hit your billable target; dress modishly; produce, produce, produce, chasing glory, laud and the propitious bonus at your annual, hopefully praiseworthy, review.
Truthfully, mostly I reverently carried the tanned, worn-leather satchels of revered litigators, accompanied by their bespoke, monogramed velvety pouches rumpling their tabs and robes. However, King and Bay remain the best legal pedagogy – work extremely hard; do it right; preparation is the key to success and, most importantly, win, by any means ethically.
In my early thirties, decorous to a fault, I could never say ‘no’, prolonging my exploitative servitude. I had worked ridiculously hard, stretching myself far too thin, inexorably north of double a regular, forty-hour work week. Eventually, after suffering ineffably, I played the tape forward, rebuffing my all-too-certain fate as a paisley-tied, twice-divorced and dyed-in-the-wool equity partner. I yearned, admittedly pollyannaishly, to be more than a cog in the machine, perpetually taught to will a case into existence, even if the facts, the law, or the fair-handed administration of justice may not support a laudatory outcome.
Three years deep, contemporaneously embracing fatherhood, I desperately needed reprieve from my dialectic, pwned existence. Unabashedly I tendered notice of my stopgap absence for statutory, parental leave - the first, male lawyer in the establishment to do so, to the consternation of the peevishly orthodox, fleur-de-lis management. Evidently the Civil Code was silent on working men electing to care primarily for their children. Hence, my departure, in the guise of government-sanctioned, childcare leave, was not entirely cordial – there may have been some yawping, mutually, hastening my self-abnegating, precipitous exit from the venerated Pearson Specter, until the twelfth of never. My career downtown came to a sticky end. Swipe left - Bob’s your uncle.
Within a fortnight, after unwittingly gentrifying south Cabbage town, we sold our razor thin, cookie-cutter, downtown townhouse, reminiscent of 12 Grimmauld Place, moving to my hometown, Lindsay, with our first born in tow. To pay our bills, my rampart wife, a business lawyer at a rival tier one, Bay Street juggernaut, propitiatory throughout the calamity, agreed to commute to-and-fro Hog town daily, exceeding an hour each way, at least until I conceived of a more judicious plan. She deserves sainthood.
Juridically disillusioned, I ran unsuccessfully for the McGuinty centrists in the 2003 Ontario general election. Remarkably the province washed over in a sea of red, except for my ostensibly dyed-in-the-blue, pastoral riding. Politics would not save me.
Next…….the law shall set you free.
