Just a touch late in doing these updates – because a lot of truly AWFUL things happened this past year.

SO MUCH BAD STUFF

2023 was remarkable around the world for atrocities and horrors the likes of which I had not seen in my life’s time. There isn’t anything else I can say about that, beyond what I have said since Oct 7 and I’m not going to resolve what’s happening. Nothing has improved on that score, but things are steadily getting worse and in light of the volatile environment within the law as a result, I’ll leave it to institutional wisdom to address, while I stay mostly quiet on the topic. That’s where most of us are now. Silenced and terrified, isolated and overwhelmingly sad. I had hoped for better things for us all.

Along with these much more significant and global tragedies, I’ll acknowledge a really remarkable series of professional failures throughout the year in terms of things I thought I’d advocate for, things I thought I approached in the least intrusive, most civil manner, raising sensible concerns that many others shared, where I got either or both of: (1) no support publicly even from known allies and/or (2) very public abuse, anonymous, online, personal, direct, privately communicated – all kinds of backlash that shocked me. Repeatedly. An extreme disappointment for me about the legal profession and the extent to which, as the Ontario bar, we have been politicized, polarized and both dysregulated and unregulated in this regard.

Examples of all these terrifically unpleasant interactions and worthless outcomes, despite my very best efforts, are evidenced throughout this wordpress blog, including my concerns about coalition / slate voting in the April 2023 Bencher election and the ORB’s unilateral return to in-person proceedings, just for starters.

Later I pleaded for civility, compassion and respect where dialogue around Israel / Palestine was happening. I had zero ultimate success in any of these spheres, and had very little, if any, public support in any case despite the masses who did agree with me privately and took a lot of flack for raising my voice, from many angles.

All of which made me wonder why I’m such a glutton for punishment. The simple fact is I cannot help but speak truth to power, regardless of the consequences for me, personally or professionally. While not the direct path to a judicial appointment, certainly, at least I can look myself in the mirror every night and know I didn’t stay complicit with unfairness. At least I spoke up where I could in earnest and honestly reflecting my most considered opinion in line with the interest of my clients, colleagues and humanity as I saw things. I may have been wrong in places, but at least I can say I spoke and acted with integrity at every turn. That’s all we can expect of ourselves – it’s what I expect of myself anyway. For better or worse and I must say this year, it was almost all universally for the worse, or at least without appreciable or immediately positive results. That’s OK – I tried my best…….better luck next year!

And perhaps as a post-script to all this, to be fair, all is not entirely lost. Maybe because I’m ultimately an eternal optimist, or maybe it’s some weird irrepressible spirit that drives me, or maybe I am just extraordinarily naive, but for whatever reason, if I’m being honest, I’ll confess to still having this idea that some good might yet come of all my endless agitation. And really, little drops of good are already trickling in. Maybe next year’s closing out report will reveal some surprises. Can’t get much worse anyway…famous last words, mind.