Part 15

It has been a wild few weeks at work.  Like most professions and trades the business would be great if it wasn't for customers.  I love them all but......

Anyway, back to law school.

After almost giving a first year tort professor a heart attack and sending my family law professor to the hospital, what other trouble could I get into.  Since I was secretary of the student council, a student rep at Faculty council and the student member of the admissions committee I really had to try and behave myself. By third year, all a student wants to do is finish and get to the articling position.

In my case, I decided to try something different.  I contact the business faculty at McMaster University.  They have an MBA co-op program.  Three or four months of classes and then the same time in a work environment.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach, get an mba and article all at the same time.  And it was a great idea.  Unique in all ways.  The interview with Mac went well.  I wouldn't have to pay any tutition and I would be teaching their business course.

Except, we were dealing with 1974!  That should be enough to explain why it did not happen.  The law society said no.  They wanted 11 months of articling at a law firm and nothing less.  My mentor in law school who became a court of appeal judge and was a bencher at the time, appealed the decision on my behalf without success.  Conservatism at its worst.

Today, such a proposal would likely be received with flying colours.  I guess I was borne a couple of decades too early.

The interesting thing for me was that I sometimes wonder how my life would have changed if I had been admitted to McMaster.  I would have lived in Hamilton and likely never started teaching at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College or have a relationship with CMCC that started in 1976.

So I started my articling interviews which were a serious pain in all parts of my body.  Some were interesting, most involved meeting with individuals whose egos were the size of a large automobile.  One interview in particular involved meeting with two individuals in a large boardroom who proceeded to tell me that it would be a privilege if I received an offer.  I told them I didn't deserve such a privilege and left the meeting.

At another interview I was asked if I had a licence.  I said yes, not realizing that they were talking about a pilot's licence.  I didn't, but received an offer anyway.  My last interview was on a Saturday at a two man law firm north of Toronto.  We met in a small diner that looked like something straight out of Saturday Night Live with John Belushi.  I really really liked the interview.  I received an offer and grabbed at it.  There would be two of us articling.

I advised the downtown lawyers that I was not accepting their offer and you would have thought that they had never been told no.  More arrogance.  

I finished law school the last week of April and started articling the first Monday in May.  Just like finishing high school and starting university and then finishing undergraduate and starting law school with no travels or adventures.  What a stupid idea.

One last thing about law school.  I ended up receiving the Dean Ivan Rand Honour award along with two other students.  One who went on to be a judge and the other who stayed and taught tax law.  I ended upon on the dean's list.  I didn't both going to the awards banquet.  While most people think that I strive for attention, it is quite the opposite - if the attention grabs me, so be it, otherwise I am running in the opposite direction.

And after ending up on the dean's list, my parents were amazed and asked me why if I did so well in law school I had to go to summer school in high school.  I told them that the answer was simple -- going to summer school meant that I didn't have to get a summer job!  Seemed logical.