With 2025 coming to a close, I want to take a moment to thank, firstly, the LIANS team who work on your behalf – Alex, Cynthia, Lisa and Patricia – and secondly, and it is a close second, the volunteers from the profession who sit on LIANS’ Board of Directors and committees. And of course, a thank you to you, the membership, for your trust and confidence in us.
Heading into my tenth year here, I have seen several changes in how law is practiced since 2017. And if I look a little further back to when I started practicing in 1991 when high tech meant you had a fax machine that used regular paper, the changes in how law is practiced are dramatic. When I articled the senior lawyer in my group dictated his letters to an assistant who took shorthand. My point – which sometimes takes me a few minutes to get to – is that this profession has always changed as technology changed. So it is understandable that with technologies like AI, how we practice is evolving once again.
Keep up we must so we learn and adapt. But through it all, for lawyers, one thing that never changes is our collective desire to do right by our clients and society at large. Resolute representation within the rules of the game will always be core to being a lawyer.
At LIANS we are, perhaps, more aware than many of the challenges lawyers face simply when doing their job. We often take it on the chin when someone asks how we can represent this person or defend that person. And yes, very often we battle our own consciences. To those of you who ask, or get asked, or think about these things, I will say this. As much as these challenges affect us, the fact is that everyone wants their kid to become a lawyer. Because it is an honourable profession. It always has been and will continue to be.
But it can be exhausting. So, at this time of the year, I would like everyone to take some time for themselves, their families, and their friends. And, while doing that, if you find yourself drifting off into work, pause and remind yourself that as important as that might be, it is not as important as family and friends.
With kindest regards to you and yours,
Lawrence Rubin
P.S. For those of you who think I am the Grinch, here is proof I am not:
