Intensity and insight ripple through speeches by award-winning lawyers

By Paul Russell, LegalMatters Staff • A passion for social and legal justice was clearly evident in speeches given by the three award winners at the 20th Annual Toronto Lawyers Association Gala, honouring litigators at different stages of their careers.

In accepting the Emerging Excellence award – given to someone who has been in practice 10 years or less – Ceyda Turan started off her speech by noting “it is an amazing feeling to be awarded for doing work that I believe in.”

Turan represented the Williams Treaties First Nations in a recent legal action regarding a longstanding dispute over the 1923 Williams Treaties, successfully securing financial compensation of $1.11 billion for the indigenous group.

“[The agreement] is one of my proudest achievements in life and I am thankful to [Williams Treaty negotiators] for recognizing my skills and knowledge and recommending me as lead legal counsel,” she said, thanking those in attendance by name.

“It was an honour and privilege to work with you. Thank you for judging me on the content of my character and my work and thank you for your mentorship, friendship and support.”

Turan praised her friends and colleagues, past and present, noting, “we all know how challenging and taxing law school and the legal profession can be on our emotional, physical and mental health.”

She ended by thanking her family in Turkey, delivering the message in Turkish “since most of my family does not speak English.”

‘Patriarchal structure of traditional law firms’

The Honsberger Award – given to a lawyer who exemplifies the TLA’s three pillars of knowledge, community and advocacy – was presented to Gillian Hnatiw for her work with victims of violence, sexual assault, abuse and exploitation.

“There is something fundamentally unsettling in the zeitgeist right now that makes it a challenging time to be a woman in public life, never mind an outspoken feminist working at the boundaries of the law,” Hnatiw said in her speech.

She criticized political institutions for not giving women the same opportunities as men.

“It is guaranteed that the next U.S. president will be another old white guy with a questionable track record on issues of gender and sexual misconduct,” Hnatiw said. “In Canada, we’re not faring a whole lot better these days, as all of our political leaders are men.”

She also lambasted the Canadian legal industry for its approach to female practitioners.

“Study after study demonstrates that law firms are still expecting women to outwork and outperform their male colleagues in order to advance,” Hnatiw said. “The recent trend of encouraging women to ‘lean in’ to their careers just reinforces this idea – as though it is somehow our failure to work hard enough, rather than the patriarchal structure of traditional law firms, that is holding us back.”

The final honour of the night, the Award of Distinction, went to “a lawyer who needs no introduction” said TLA president Margaret Waddell, in presenting to legendary litigator Brian Greenspan.

After thanking her and the TLA, Greenspan noted that “receiving awards from your peers for perceived contributions to our profession and to the administration of justice is overwhelmingly gratifying.

‘Romantic’ perception of our profession

He then quipped, “At the same time, the notion of lifetime achievement creates a sense of unease, if not grave concern. Has your executive had a private discussion with my family physician? Do they know more about my future than I do? Why aren’t they waiting another five or 10 years when the word ‘lifetime’ may perhaps be less equivocal?”

Greenspan gave gala members a short chronology of his life, starting in his hometown of Niagara Falls, “a tough working-class immigrant border town, where we were presented with a clear choice: crime or criminal law.”

Reflecting on what it means to be a lawyer, Greenspan noted, “I have always embraced a romantic — and perhaps maudlin and intolerably elevated perception — of our profession … the concept of being called to the bar conveys a sense of mission, a dedication to the public good, accompanied by conviction and principle.”

He urged the other lawyers in the room to spare no effort in pursuing what they feel passionate about.

“What you believe is your recipe for fulfillment. Live it vigorously, play it hard, exhaust yourself … our community and the legal profession are enhanced when we approach every assignment with a sense of purpose, with the objective of not only doing good work, but doing it right, and doing the best job possible with wholehearted zeal,” Greenspan said.