The First Thing I Did Was Leave Things Alone.

QUESTION 1 OF 6

You became Partner and Calgary Office Leader in 2024, after six years as an associate at the same firm. What did you change first when the office became yours to lead, and what did you deliberately leave alone?

I'd spent my first six years helping build the office alongside the colleague who led it before me. We went through a stretch of heavy turnover where, at one point, it was essentially the two of us keeping things going. So when the office became mine to lead, I knew what we'd built, where we were strong and where we weren't.

The first thing I did was leave things alone. Leadership transitions create uncertainty, because people don't know what a new leader will change. I wanted to be clear that there would be a lot of continuity. The office had real momentum in the Calgary market, and I didn't want to disrupt it. I received tremendous support from our founder, Eric Dolden, as well as Chris Stribopoulos and Morgan Martin in Toronto, and Matt Bujar and Tom Newnham in Vancouver. Their advice and encouragement made the transition considerably easier.

So after a transition period of observation to see what changes would be helpful, what I changed gradually was structure. I started out giving people a lot of freedom and ownership, and I learned that autonomy works best when it comes with structure. As an office grows, you need processes, standards and accountability, so clients keep getting excellent service and the business runs responsibly.

So I systematized whatever could reasonably be systematized: file intake, limitation periods, work product review, billing and reporting. I like checklists. They aren't glamorous, but they stop important things from falling through the cracks. The goal is to spend less time working in the business and more time working on it.

I also adopted a collaborative approach to decisions. I like to decide by consensus where I can, but you can't run everything by committee, and some decisions belong to the person responsible. I think consensus has the benefit of making sure people feel heard and that they are part of the vision for what's next. Consensus also has a second benefit: it makes you explain why, not just what. People buy into a direction when they understand the thinking and have had a chance to contribute.

So I kept the entrepreneurial spirit that built the office and added the structure it needed for its next stage.

QUESTION 2 OF 6

You're running for Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta in the 2026 election. Most lawyers want nothing to do with their regulator. Why run toward it, and what do you think the Law Society gets wrong about lawyers like you?

Anyone who becomes a lawyer understands that the profession carries a public-interest responsibility. We advise, we advocate, and we're trusted with decisions that can help or harm people. Public confidence in the profession matters, and taking part in its governance is one way to support it.

I also understand why many lawyers stay away from regulation. Regulatory decisions affect more than professional standards. They shape how the business of law operates, how services are delivered and who can participate in the market. That's why I think practising lawyers need a voice. Alberta's innovation sandbox, and similar conversations in Ontario, raise real questions about business structures and the future of legal practice. Those are questions that genuinely interest me.

I also bring a particular perspective. Much of my practice involves defending regulated professionals, including psychologists, accountants, engineers and architects, against allegations of unprofessional conduct. You learn quickly that self-regulation is a significant responsibility, and it has to be exercised carefully and in the public interest. I find that challenge interesting, and I think that experience is useful at the Bencher table.

As for what I'd say the Law Society should keep in view, it's how varied the profession is. Running a small practice, working in a national firm, practising in-house and serving a rural community are very different experiences, and the same rule can land very differently in each. I say that with respect for the institution. It does better work when more of those perspectives are in the room.

I've also spent much of my career helping build a business within a national firm, so I understand both the professional responsibilities we carry and the commercial realities of running a practice.

Finally, I'm a litigator who spends a lot of time negotiating. I don't shy away from conflict when it's needed, but it rarely serves a client to start there. I look for where there's agreement and then deal with what's left. That approach translates well to regulation.

Self-regulation is a privilege and a responsibility. If we want to keep it, we have to be willing to take part in it.

QUESTION 3 OF 6

Insurance Defence and Access to Justice

Your practice is insurance defence: professional liability, coverage, appeals. At the same time, you co-chair the CBA Alberta Access to Justice Committee. Those two worlds rarely sit at the same table. What do they misunderstand about each other?

At first glance, I can see why these might seem like opposite worlds. On one side, you have individuals with limited financial or other resources trying to navigate a justice system that can be extraordinarily complex. On the other, you have sophisticated corporate clients who are accustomed to accessing legal services and navigating that system. Those are obviously very different experiences.

But I think there is an important commonality that often gets overlooked: we're ultimately talking about the same justice system.

Through conversations with mentors, I've come to see that access to justice isn't only about affordable services or helping people navigate procedure. It's also about the clarity of the law itself.

When we clarify a procedural rule that applies to all litigation in Alberta, the system becomes a little more accessible to everyone. The rules on when a third party can be added to an action are a good example. Whoever finds themselves in that position benefits from a clear answer.

In my own practice, I've also had the opportunity to advance arguments about how professional discipline should operate. Some of those arguments have contributed to a broader judicial discussion about the purpose of professional discipline, including the importance of rehabilitation alongside other regulatory objectives. The Court of Appeal subsequently addressed the need for changes to the framework governing disciplinary decisions in Alberta, in a decision in which I had no direct involvement.

The reverse is also true. Complexity favours whoever has the resources to manage it. Every unnecessary layer makes the system harder for people with fewer resources.

So here's what each side can learn. Access-to-justice discussions would benefit from paying more attention to clear, predictable, workable rules. And those of us in insurance defence and commercial litigation shouldn't judge the system only by how it works for sophisticated clients.

We have more common ground than either side tends to assume.

QUESTION 4 OF 6

Building Organizations and Communities Where People Want to Belong

Your profile says you build "organizations and communities where people want to belong." That's not language most litigation firms use. What does belonging actually do for a firm's business, and how do you know it's working?

The answer is fairly simple. Practising law involves a fair amount of drudgery: difficult files, deadlines and unexpected problems. At some level, the question is who you want to work through that with. I'd say people who share my vision and whose company I enjoy.

What I value in an organization's culture includes shared values, a shared approach to the work and a shared philosophy about how we serve clients. In the Calgary office, building on what was already here, I've encouraged curiosity. It doesn't matter whether a claim is large or small. If you find an interesting issue and approach it with curiosity, you'll do better work. Curiosity is the ultimate cheat code: if you're fascinated by what you're doing, the energy takes care of itself.

We also balance two things. We have exacting standards, and we hold ourselves and each other to them. We're serious about what needs to be serious and relaxed about the rest. And we have each other's backs. If something goes wrong, we start from the assumption that people did their best with what they had, and then we fix it together.

This pays off in business terms. Trust reduces turnover, and when clients see the same familiar, trusted advisors handling their files, it creates a virtuous circle. People know they can rely on each other, clients develop confidence in the people looking after them, and that confidence reinforces the relationships. That's how I know it's working: people stay, clients notice, and the organization becomes stronger. Trust is a choice we make every day, and it needs to be continually fostered.

The same interest in belonging extends beyond the office. As president of the Downtown West Community Association, I think a lot about placemaking. Calgary is a young city without centuries of shared history, and I heard a line recently that stuck with me: perhaps what binds us here is a shared vision of the future.

That's true of a law firm too. People want to feel they're part of something meaningful and have a role to play in what comes next.

QUESTION 5 OF 6

Being a Francophone Lawyer Practising Common Law in Calgary

You're a francophone practising common law in Calgary, and you serve on the executive of the French-speaking Common Law Lawyers Section. What does working in two languages give you that other lawyers miss, in the courtroom and in the market?

I'd start with a broader point. People who speak more than one language bring a perspective shaped by the language and also by the culture that comes with it. The language you grow up speaking becomes, in many respects, a prism through which you see the world. Learning another language gives you another lens.

That's valuable in law, because so many disputes are rooted in relationships and in different perceptions of the same events. People get attached to their own version of what happened. That's human nature. If you're used to moving between linguistic and cultural perspectives, you're more conscious of it. You ask whether there's another way to read the situation, what's motivating the other side, and whether the problem can be reframed in a way that opens up a solution.

In the courtroom, that habit helps me see how a judge, a witness or opposing counsel might be reading the same facts. I've had a number of files where language hasn't necessarily done a very good job of bridging different cultural assumptions. I've found that identifying those assumptions and explaining them to both sides can be tremendously helpful. I have also found that this connects me to Francophone clients and communities that many Calgary lawyers might not feel as comfortable servicing.

There's a practical side too. In Alberta, it matters to keep Francophone and Anglophone legal communities connected. I contribute to that as a member of the executive of the French-speaking Common Law Lawyers Section, and I'd like to see bilingualism recognized as an asset to the whole profession.

Working in more than one language makes you accustomed to looking at a problem through more than one lens, and that's a useful habit for anyone whose job is to solve other people's problems.

QUESTION 6 OF 6

Building a Reputation Through Appellate Work

You run an appellate practice across several provinces. Appeals are where a lawyer's reputation is built quietly; nobody reads factums for fun. How do you turn appellate work into a name that clients and insurers actually hear about?

Appellate work is partly its own calling card. Unlike some other aspects of what lawyers do, the decisions are publicly reported. Existing clients have contacted me after searching for someone who had dealt with a particular issue at the Court of Appeal and finding my name in a reported decision. Court materials are also public, and LexisNexis has asked permission to include my appellate materials in its database on several occasions.

That visibility only helps if you also communicate. We feature our appellate work in firm newsletters, and we're building our appellate capability across the firm. My colleague Charles Painter in Toronto is developing an appellate group.

But visibility is only the mechanism. The real value is the thinking behind it. Appellate judges know the record and the law thoroughly, and they test your arguments hard. You have to know not only why your position is right, but also why the law developed as it did, what principles underpin it and how your argument fits the larger framework. I enjoy that, because it takes you past the immediate dispute into fundamental questions about how law works.

I also think appellate experience has value well before a matter ever reaches an appeal. Understanding how courts approach difficult legal questions, how principles develop and how arguments are likely to be scrutinized can inform the strategic advice you give at the outset of a dispute. Ideally, clients benefit from that perspective long before they ever have to think about going to an appellate court.

That discipline also benefits clients when they challenge your position or ask why you've reached a particular conclusion. You can explain your reasoning because you've spent considerable time thinking about the underlying issues.

I want clients and insurers to see me as someone who has thought carefully about the legal questions behind their problems, not just someone who can stand up in the Court of Appeal.

Reputation follows from real expertise, made visible, that translates into practical value for the client.