Find Your Stride

In August 2022, I was climbing a mountain, following our guide up and across glaciers, heading for the summit. I could not catch my breath. My heart was racing, and I could not slow it down. Finally, I said to the guide, “I need to stop for a minute. I can’t catch my breath.” He turned to look at me. “You are matching my stride. I am six inches taller than you. Find your own stride.” I took his advice and a couple of hours later climbed over the shoulder of the mountain and realized I was going to make it to the summit.

Two years earlier, in the summer of 2020, I had to make a hard decision about my career. Even before I started law school, I knew I wanted to come back to practice in my small community on Vancouver Island. I was lucky to find an articling position at a mid-sized firm that had a small office in my town. I went on to become an associate and then a partner. In 2020, the firm decided to close that small office. Small communities like mine are at the forefront of the access to justice crisis—not enough lawyers to provide the legal services the community needs, and especially the legal services needed by the most vulnerable members of the community.  I had to choose between finding another firm to work for (likely outside of my community, in the middle of a global pandemic) or staying in town to open an office of my own.

To be honest, I had been struggling in some ways at my previous firm. I wanted my workplace to be a community as well as the place where we all earned a living. I believed it could be rooted in shared values and priorities, where trust, support and encouragement were offered and received. As the years at my previous firm went by, I had to face the reality that maybe it wasn’t the best fit—I was trying to match someone else’s stride.

So, in January of 2021 I became a sole practitioner in my small town with the hope of creating that kind of workplace for myself and attracting others who were looking for the same thing.

We have all heard that courage only exists by doing something that you are afraid of. Well, I was terrified. I now believe that courage is rarely found without the trust, support and encouragement of others.

I became a CBABC member in law school. In early 2021, as I was climbing the steep learning curve of opening a law office, I started to notice all the supports and resources that CBABC offered to lawyers in my situation—everything from continuing professional development to practice management to community connection.  We were living through the pandemic, and CBABC had pivoted quickly to online offerings. Through those offerings I found community, shared values and so much support and encouragement. I found my courage. CBABC aims to connect its members to the people, knowledge and skills that we need to successfully practice law. As a lawyer practicing in a small town, first as a sole practitioner and now in a small firm, I have seen in this access to justice crisis just how well CBABC does this work.

A priority over my term as CBABC President is to connect with sole practitioners and lawyers working in small firms throughout B.C. I want to hear how they are impacted by the ever-increasing need for access to justice. I want to hear what challenges they face and what successes they enjoy. And, most of all, I want to find out what CBABC is doing right and what more we can do to support them in their work so that each one of them can find—and maintain—their own stride.