The practice of law is a profession and different from a mere retail business. Or is it?
“Selling law is not that much different than marketing cosmetics” Susan Elliot, director of marketing for the law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, said in a recent Globe and Mail interview.
However, you can overindulge in the law business. One of the finalists in the Saskatoon YWCA’s Women of Distinction awards, Virginia Fisher, was described in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix as “a mother, a recovering lawyer, a stand-up comic wannabe, and a passionate world changer.”
Read Also
Claims filed in Alberta hailstorm aftermath
The numbers are still coming in for the cost of the damage caused by a huge hail storm that hit various areas of Alberta Aug. 20.
The business of law does involve matters going to court. An Edmonton man sued his marriage counsellor, The National Post reported, because the counsellor was alleged to have had a sexual relationship with the wife while advising the couple.
And also in Edmonton, student Marika Schwandt was charged for bringing a blender to the polling station during the 2000 federal election and blending her
ballot.
Even when you try and stay away from court you can’t always succeed. A Moncton, N.B., judge ordered the sheriff to round up more potential jurors for the jury pool in a complex criminal case. CBC radio reported in a Nov. 22 broadcast that the sheriff went to a local mall and rounded up 75 unsuspecting shoppers.
Also from New Brunswick, three police officers allegedly took a taxi cab to a drug bust, The Globe and Mail reported April 9.
Sometimes the courts convict people on testimony from jailhouse informants. How reliable is such testimony?
“They must be recognized as a very great danger to our trial system. Steps must be taken to rid the courts of this cancerous corruption of the administration of justice…. Jailhouse informants are a festering sore. They constitute a malignant infection that renders a fair trial impossible. They should, as far as it is possible, be excised and removed from our trial process.”
Words from a frustrated defence lawyer? No, this was retired Supreme Court judge Peter Cory reporting on the wrongful conviction of a Winnipeg man, Thomas Sophonow. The retired judge said, “in this case, it will be seen that an experienced detective thought that Mr. Martin, a very frequent jailhouse informant, with a conviction for perjury, was a credible witness. He lied in this case and he has testified in at least nine other cases, undoubtedly with the same degree of mendacity.”
A current Supreme Court judge discussed the merits of strip clubs versus country music bars. In a judgment upholding the right of a strip club to continue operations in the city of Saint-Romuald, judge Binnie noted “the respondents’ country and western cabaret was renamed … Ecstasy and the singing cowboys and cowgirls were replaced by nude dancers. Business improved.”
And in comparing country music to nude dancing he said, “the outcome … should not turn on personal value judgments such as whether nude dancing is more or less deplorable than cowboy singing. I am unable, with respect, to accept as legally relevant my colleague’s observation that ‘whereas erotic entertainment seeks to sexually arouse the audience … country and western shows seek to entertain by providing a showcase for the special talents of singers, musicians and dancers’. Serious music is also commonly thought to arouse the passions profoundly.”
One of the dissenting judges pointed out that the bar had installed private viewing booths. The majority countered by saying the booths are no different than a restaurant installing private dining rooms.
At a more local level, Ashley MacIsaac, a noted Cape Breton fiddler, appeared before a Saskatchewan court charged with possessing marijuana. The judge first wanted to know if this was “the Ashley MacIsaac” and upon sentencing wondered aloud if he could get an autograph.
