Hello, and welcome back to speak to a lawyer. I'm your host, Abby Charney. And on this episode, I'm honored to speak to a legendary securities litigator, Joseph Gray. He's a man of strong principles and convictions of Britain. with experience, not only as one represented clients, but also as a defendant himself. Of course, I'm referring to the famous Royal law society of upper Canada case that went on for nearly a decade cost millions of dollars and went all the way up to. Oh, the Supreme court before Joe of course was acquitted. Joe is a frequent speaker and educator, as you'll be able to tell from the moment he opens his mouth, but it wasn't always that way. Joe has humble beginnings and a working class background. He worked for the securities commission before joining Kenan Blakey as the first litigator in Toronto, as was heard from prior episodes, you know, Blakey didn't last. So in the year 2000 Joe. To start his own house from on base streets, 2015, Joe was elected by the bar to serve as a bench of the law society, APA Canada. And now the Royal society of Ontario. Joe was kind enough to share a long list of book recommendations, which I'll put in the show notes. I'll start by asking. So what have benches do? The ventures are essentially the board of directors for the law society and the law society. From my perspective, Really has three distinct cops are responsibilities. First of all, we are the regulator of the legal profession. So that means we are concerned with licensing was disciplined with weeding out bad lawyers and dishonest lawyers. Really protecting the public from lawyers who are either not competent or not trustworthy. The second thing we do is we are concerned with improving standards of professional competence. So we do a lot of work on trying to educate and update lawyers skills. Because in my view, you're not are looking to have just a competent lawyer. You're looking to have the most competent lawyer that you can possibly find for a particular problem. And then the third thing we do is we run a variety of other businesses. So we're in the catering business, the insurance business, we manage half of Osgoode hall, which is a historic building that has a lot of challenges. And we really do provide a very mixed bag of other savings goals beyond simply being regulated. I was just appointed the new chair of audit and finance, which is I'm sure going to be a mixed blessing over the next few years, but there's going to be a lot of discussion about the extent to which the law society needs to tailor back. Some of the things it does. And become much more focused on which for me are the two core aspects of what we should do. We should make sure we have honest lawyers and we need to make sure that we have highly skilled, competent lawyers. And when I say lawyers, of course, we also regulate the paralegal profession. There's talk about adding a new group called family service providers. So my view is that anyone who goes to get legal advice from person who's licensed by the law society is entitled to have someone who's honest, trustworthy, and highly skilled at what they do. Sounds like a fascinating, well, no, it's definitely pro bono because we agreed a few weeks ago. Eliminate any charges. We used to get a very small honorarium. When I got elected in 2015, I was in the middle of my loss society site. So it was a rather unusual time to become venture. And I think in my first six months I spent six or 700 hours reading and talking to people and getting advice and really learning all the same set of board members needs to know in order to. Be responsible in looking after the interests of the legal profession and the public. Um, after that very steep learning curve, I then sat on a few committees, became the chair of the compensation fund. And so I was probably spending more like 30 to 40 hours a month. Um, and now that I'm the chair of. Audit and finance, I've spent probably 150 hours in the last month, uh, doing a huge amount of reading about the law society's finances. And more importantly, what future-oriented financial information is telling me about the future of the law society's finances. So these are going to be very challenging times. There's already some pressure being put on. The law society to take a good, hard look at fees, and we have to be sensitive to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on all warriors in the profession that buy at the same time. Yeah, no, it's not simply possible for a regulator to say, well, we're not going to charge you anything. We're going to do this all for free and we'll figure out how the cost of regulating fishing will get dealt with by some other source of funding, which isn't available to us. So it's, it's a, I wouldn't call it a full time job, but it's certainly a heavy part time job. Um, and then the other thing that I do besides practice laws, my family owns a winery and I Agra called 16 miles cellar, which is a wonderful way of being distracted from the practice of law and figuring out how to lose money in creative ways. So the wine business, a very tough business to be in. I can tell you all those romantic ideals that any young person has a boat. Owning a winery and sitting around drinking wine, they should just throw them out the window. Like, remember not very long ago that some pump in our winery broke, somebody had to with their hand and unspeakable gut in order to. Clean it out and get it started again. And that was, I was given that job by a unanimous selection committee. So at that, that was a very long and awful day. I have to tell you. Wow. It really sounds like you have a lot going on and you've got your plate full over there, but. Before we get into the prisons. I'd like to just touch upon your background, how you started out and what did you do before law and what made you decide to become a lawyer? Ultimately? Sure. I I'm actually a person who considers himself very fortunate because. And at a very young age, I would have been nine or 10 years old. I discovered lawyers, Perry Mason on television, Clarence Darrell, and you know, a couple of books. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. And so my whole life before I went to law school was very much focused on just the assumption. That was where I was going to end up. And I've often wondered. I remember the day my L set marks arrived. So I was working in a lumber yard and came home for lunch. And there was the envelope from Princeton and I had done pretty well in undergrad. So I thought I had a good chance of going to law school, but if I got a really bad L sec, I didn't know if I'd get in. So as I sat there looking at the envelope before I opened it, I was really quite anxious about having never really thought about doing anything different. And so I grew up at blue and Lansdowne, very tough working class neighborhood. I went to Brock public school, Kent, senior, public, and bluer collegiate. Um, I had, my first job was when I was nine years old. I started doing the laundry for a fellow up the street and he paid me by giving me all of his soda bottle empties that I got to take back to the store, but I got to keep the money. And I didn't realize at the time that. There was a reason why there were so many empties, but I figured it out years later. Um, and then I got a job at the Canadian national exhibition selling programs and hotdogs. Coca-Cola worked there for a few years. Then I went to work at a lumberyard that was originally called Safeway while warden lumber, then Safeway, then it became a Beaver lumber. I worked there from 15 when I actually got into law school is when I left there. I did general contracting on the side. So I worked with a bunch of carpenters. I was the kid who spoke good English and they were lots of very talented trades people, but. They were recent immigrants to the country. So I would be the little scrawny guy who would go around and quote the jobs. If there was a problem, I was the one that would get yelled at. Um, and I did that until I went to law school as well. So as I say, I always had that as my career aspiration and I've always been a bit. Sympathetic to people don't know what they want to do. And sometimes I ended up going to law school because they can't get into med school and they don't really have any other idea about their career path. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, my, my father was a bellman at the Royal or Kotel. And through that job, I got to meet people like Ella Fitzgerald and count Basey and Tony Bennett. Um, I remember getting up one morning and Gump Horsley, who was then a goalie for the New York Rangers was asleep on our living room coach because. He, and my father had gone out, I guess, for a couple of beers after work. And one thing led to another, my mother worked at the post office and, you know, again, I, I don't know that there was anything about my background or education that really. Cause me to head in the direction of law. It was just one of those fortuitous events in life where you wake up one day realizing suddenly you've got very keen interest in a particular career. And luckily it's, it's a wonderful, refreshing to be in. So, you know what actually got me. Interested that way. I really don't know. I, I, then once I started to have an interest, I went to Saturday morning classes and took a course from a lawyer named Julian RemainCo who later got disbarred for stealing money from his trust account. Uh, and then later on, I. My parents were dealing with another lawyer named George Ellis Chuck, and he got disbarred. So my legal role models before I got to law school were not necessarily the best you could hope for. Um, but then I was very lucky because I went to U of T and, and met some absolutely wonderful mentors and teachers. That for me was an incredible opportunity. In many ways, things that have happened in my career have all been as a result of good luck, just meeting people who gave me great advice at a time when. No. If I'd had to make my own decisions, I would have ended up somewhere else. I'll tell you a funny little anecdote when I was in senior public school. Ah, I see still had this ambition of going to law school, but I also worry what would I do if I couldn't get there. And so rather than signing up for blue or collegiate, I signed up to go to central commerce, which was the sort of vocational business school. And the vice president and the vice principal rather at Kent was a fellow by the name of mr. Moore. Mr. Moore was also a disciplinarian. So you never wanted to be called down to mr. Brewer's office. And I got through a year and a half without ever having to say anything other than yes, sir. And no, sir. And so one day I'm sitting in class and I. Get called down to mr. Moore's office. So I'm absolutely terrified. And he's wearing an immaculate two piece suit, 10. It's a heavily starched shirt and his offices. They've got an empty desk and as I'm waiting outside, I hear him yelling at some kid who's in trouble and I'm thinking, Oh, this is, this is terrible. It's the end of my life. So that kid comes out lucky. Like you've seen a ghost and I go in, and there's no place to sit. You stand in mr. Moore's office, but he's seated behind his desk. And there, I see my high school application and he says, you know, mr. Greg, I have to tell you, you've made a mistake on your application. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Moray tried really hard. I worked very hard to get that. All right. So, you know, just tell me what it is. I'll fix it. Cause I want to go back to anywhere, but here he said, yes, I see you've put down central commerce as your high school. I said, well, yes sir. Oh, that's what I want to do. That, that was my intention. So that's not a mistake. And he said, no, I think you've made a mistake. He takes out his. Fountain pen frost is out central commerce and writes in blue or collegiate and says, mrs. Marie, who was my homeroom teacher. And I have decided that you're going to go to blue or collegiate. And he says, is that okay? This point I would have said yes, just about anything to get out of there. So that's how I ended up at blue or collegiate instead of at a commercial school. And I had four or five experiences similar to that over my. Career, maybe we'll come to how I met Ian Binney through Bob sharp at the U of T law school. And yes, the next similar event was I in second year I was Bob Sharpe's research assistant. He gave me the worst job, I think. Worst legal job I've ever had, except maybe for a week in Timmins where I had to go in February, there was no heat in the factory. I had to look for a document set, but I was a Bob's research assistant, and he had me read every single decision of the Exchequer court in the federal court. Um, this was of course, long before. If there was any computer research and long before the UFT had air conditioning in the library, but any, that was the summer we were to look for articling jobs. And so I had gone through the list of litigation firms and I had figured out the ones I wanted to apply to and I had done very well law school. So yeah. I was surprised that a couple of firms wouldn't even give me an interview. Why do you think that was? Well, I know why was it was because my last name ended in a vowel and this is 1977. Before base tree became more inclusive and more open to. Yeah. In those days, Italian Canadians. Um, and so as I was sending out my applications, Bob said, all well, you have to apply to firm called Mick, tell your pots. And I said, I've never heard of this for him. And he said, no, no, I do a bit of contract work for them. And so you have to go meet Ian Benny. Yeah. I didn't know who he and Benny was. And so I said, cause it was Bob sharp. Okay. I'll I'll do that. So he, I then called you say, call a Rosalee and secretary and she'll set up an appointment. Well, I called Rosa Lee and secretary and she blew me off. And so I went back to Bob and I said, you know, Barbara, I'm sorry, I do what you asked. I called. And she said, he's too busy to see me. He said, Oh, I forgot to call her. So he said, wait right here. So he gets on the phone. I can hear Rosalee yelling at him. Oh, this impertinent guy who calls up and just wants to come and see mr. Binney and Dole. I know how busy he is. So Bob comms are down and he gets me in the interview with Ian. I go and see him in his backyard. He's doing gardening and I'm having a beer and a, we talked for a long time and I saw this is incredible. Yeah, I think it, it still happens at well, not including 19 times. That's for sure. But I've done student interviews in the last couple of years that were similar in either beer on the patio out there or a glass of wine. Um, so I, I, uh, Had offers from the car season and fast skins and Blake's and for reasons, mostly because of Bob having such a huge influence on me, I ended up going to make tiger plots. So imagine working at a firm. Of about 20 lawyers and the key litigators besides Ian were George stressy, who was Ian junior, um, our sort of stone who went on to be a judge of the federal court of appeal. These signed my bar certificates. Oh, he did. Oh, well, good for you. Um, and, uh, There was Bob Peck who went on to be general counsel of the Institute of chartered accountants. Uh, Tom Don, who went to goings after the firm. Um, and I had the most incredible articling experience I could have ever hoped for. I got to work with eons on a case involving the city of Hamilton. And I guess, because. Ian had been told by Bob that I liked sitting in on air conditioned libraries. He sent me to the city of Hamilton archives, which are actually in the basement where I spent a couple of weeks looking for documents concerning ownership of the Hamilton Harvard. Cause there was a fight between the city of Hamilton, Hamilton, Harbor commissioners. Um, and so I, I worked there for. All of my articles. And then I worked through the bar ads P and went off to Ottawa to be deputy minister justice. And so I moved to McMillen Ben chapter that back when the trust companies where we're blowing up, but stay, I keep very close. Was Bob, was he in then? Um, whatever skills I think I developed at least as a young lawyer, uh, I certainly learned a lot of them from Ian. And even today, when I'm talking to one of our students, I can hear Ian's voice in the back of my head about a particular issue. Yeah. In fact, one of the things I just said to a student yesterday was. You know, what I was taught as a student is that you never settle a case with your own client. Ian Benny told me that the easiest way to settle a case is you get a client, you go to the other side and you get whatever offer you can get from them. And then you beat up on your own client to get them to take the offer. And he said, that's exactly the worst thing you can do as a professional. Our job is to beat up on the other side and then let our client decide whether they want to take the offer or not. We're we're advisors and we're trusted counselors, but we're not the one who says you should settle, or you should not. So because you know, your risk tolerance is perhaps very different than my risk tolerance. So once you understand, as a lay person, What's your chances are and what the possible outcomes are then you and your family gets to decide, do you take a deal or do you take your chances on the outcomes in a courtroom? And that's a skill that I watched Ian, as we were dealing with the Hamilton case, you know, and he was dealing with a very fractious client because it was the whole city council of the city of Hamilton. It's, you know, I watched him use that skillset to get them to come to grips with whether they wanted to settle or not. I actually, my experience I've been doing this now for 45 years. I tried my first case in October of 1976, and I still remember losing it badly. Um, but you know, I, I have over those many years had very few clients who have what I call settlement for Moore's. Cause I think if you push your client to settle. They often come to resent you because they feel like you were the ones making the decision rather than letting them make their own decision. And if you, if you tell them that the worst thing about settlement is said, they own the settlement. They're the ones who have to say yes, they have to accept the compromise. And often you'll have a client say, you know what? I grabbed it. Have a judge tell me I lose then take a deal that I don't think I want to accept. Well, when I was going through my loss society fight, which went on for nine years at the beginning, law society came to me with a settlement proposal and I talked to 10 or 15 lawyers, all very senior lawyers who opinion I respected. Every single one of them told me to take the deal that I couldn't win. It would cost me a fortune would be a distraction. Nobody would care, nobody would remember. Um, and that was very good advice from people who really had my best interests at heart, but I just couldn't get my. I could get my head around to figuring out why to do that, but I couldn't get my heart around to saying that was the right for me. Yeah, exactly. And so luckily my wife and my family, we're both, not at all keen for me to settle because they knew that's not my character, especially since the settlement. Involve what I considered to be a fair amount of groveling. So, so we fought and had a happy ending in the Supreme court. Although when we got to Ottawa for the last chance to win, I was losing 18 to one. So the final score was 21 to seven against me, but I got the six most important volts with a candidate. So, um, so, you know, I've kind of gone on probably for too long, but again, that's what I think students need to always try to do as they are articling is to. Learn not only the lessons they're being, given the work they're being asked to do also to look at them, the skills that senior lawyers bring to bear on us, given situation. Cause I, I learned a lot just by and being in the same room. Is he in? Even though I was the guy. No buying the coffee and driving the 72 Vega. So this is really great stuff. And it sounds like you were very lucky to meet such good mentors, but if you can run through a bit more depth about mentorship, not only right, the importance, but more, what could one do if they don't have access to that such quality mentors that you had? How does someone grow as a lawyer without such mentorship? So there's, there's three or four things that that person can do. Um, first of all, there's a very large body of great books written by lawyers and about lawyers. And so I can think of 25 or 30 biographies that I've read of lawyers, everybody from. Sean Robinett to Clarence Darrell to Louis Nizer. There was actually a question here about what books you recommend. So I'll happily take you up on your list of book recommendations and include them in the show notes. I will get you a longer list. Some of it's even fiction. In fact, I just finished. And I recommend for you this summer, Scott, his latest book called the last trial involving, uh, a character that he has developed over the years. Who's now a very senior lawyer. I'm doing is what may be his last criminal defense. And it's got a spectacular description of all of the sacrifices that he's made over his career and why he's done that and how the. His family has had to pay for the price of that. Um, so certainly you can learn a lot from reading about the life experiences of other great lawyers. Many of them are American, but there's some Canadian. There's a spectacular biography of Claire liver, a debate Connie back hosts wrote check before we leave. I'll give you a copy to take with you if you haven't read it. Cause it is a great Canadian success story. So that's one number two, there is a lawyer coaching and mentoring network law society provides. They will. We will connect you with someone who will provide you with coaching and guidance as you go along. Um, so that's the second thing and you can establish a good working relationship with somebody and just. Keep that relationship going as you finish, you develop. Certainly I think law school provides an enormous set of resources. I mean, the law professors that I had at UFT we're spectacular mentors, because you could go to them with problems. Even after you'd left law school, they would introduce you to great lawyers in their circles. And, you know, you, you could all call Joe Gray up out of the blue. And in a way, if I realized, hopefully in the first couple of minutes, she, weren't a crazy person. I'd be happy to spend 10 or 15 minutes with you, but. Yeah. If you know, Bob sharp called me up and said he wanted me to spend an hour with some young person. Of course I would do that in a heartbeat. So when you're in law school, that is the time to really start to develop relationships with professors and to use those relationships, to really build off other relationships. Um, and then lastly, you know, of course, if you've got spare time, I even when I was articling, if there was a great case that I knew was going on in the courthouse, I would sneak off and go and sit in the back and watch great lawyers battle it out. And of course, as. As a student at McTaggart pots, I was blessed. What's the opportunity of seeing Ian and great lawyers on the other side, in a bunch of cases. Um, so there's still a learning experience that you can get by actually going and watching. Great lawyers practice their craft. Yeah. Go down to Osgoode hall during my high school days and watch the great litigators and action. And, you know, that's one, the things that motivated me to become a lawyer in the first place. And, uh, you know, in addition to learning. Uh, by watching the great litigators, you can also learn a lot from, um, mistakes having been made. I'm wondering, are there any mistakes that come to mind, black courtroom blenders, so to speak that stand out in your mind that we can all learn from? Well, I had lots of those experiences and in when I was in law school, you got. If you did legal aid work, clinic work, you got lots of trial experience. So by the time I articled, I had done 40 or 50 trials on my own with very little guidance from, you know, there was a clinic lawyer, but he was busy. And so off you would go and you'd get your head kicked in. Um, I remember once being in front of a crusty judge named Robert , who I think has passed away, but. I was representing somebody on a traffic offense, probably careless driving, or maybe, maybe even impaired because in those days we could do minor criminal code matters. So I'm making myself mission some judge to Nieper says I've heard enough, mr. Roy. And I said, well, I'm not finished yet. He says, well, I think you are. I said, well, I'm sorry, your honor, but I've got a few more submissions I need to make. So he has a big, tall back chair, each swivels, his chair around. So I'm now looking at the back of his chair in the court. And I've never had this experience before court reporters smiling. And the clerk is kind of about to start to giggle. And so I figured, well, I better create a record. So I turned to the reporter and I said, I'd like the record to reflect the fact that it was a chord has turned its chair around and I'm now. Being asked to make submissions to the back of judge Denise chair and from the back of the chair, judge, any per says, well, mr. Gray, I'm not looking at you, but I'm still listening to you because that's sort of my job. And I said, well, thank you, your honor. I finished my submissions and then I stopped and I said, that's it, your honor. I'm done. So he swivels back around and proceeds to acquit my client, which was the good part of the story. Yeah, but then as I'm packing up to leave, he says to me, well, you know, mr. Gray, when a judge asks you to, or that he's heard enough, it's often a good sign as a defense lawyer because he wouldn't do that. If he was going to convict your client. And I said, well, you know, thank you, your honor. That's a lesson. I will always remember. But I can tell you, as a second year lawyer, I was a junior on a case where a very senior lawyer, we were taken into chambers by a Supreme court judge. And the Supreme court judge said to my senior. I've heard enough, mr. So and so, so, you know, I don't think you need to continue, do you and the senior lawyer said, Oh, well my Lord, if that's how you feel. And then of course I won't. And as we were leaving, I said to the senior, not all we can't do that. I mean, he's not said he's heard enough cause he's going with you. And if you don't create a record, you've got some great stuff that's still left. No, we're going to be. In trouble. And the senior lawyer said, no, no. When a judge tells you to stop, it means he's going well, of course he wasn't going for us. And when the decision came out, we lost a hundred percent because he bought the evidence of the witness that we were asked to stop cross-examining. And so I've always remembered. And I tell you I'm lawyer, when a judge says they've heard enough, If you're not done, you have to finish. You might want to shorten it up, but you need to finish who, what exactly it is you want to say? Um, I think I made mistake. Well, weeks ago I was being asked to do a. A zoom hearing in front of a judge and the other side had booked only an hour for a case that really needed or five hours. And so the judge asked the other side to consider an adjournment because she had not had a chance to read the material. And the other side said, Oh, they want to go ahead. So the judge, let them go ahead. I'm sure when it came time for my submissions, I said to the judge, you know, look, I can't do justice to my client's position in 12 or 14 minutes. So all I can do give you a very brief summary of the, of the argument. Um, and, and my client ended up losing. And if I could do that over again, I would have just said, no, I'm not able to represent my client in the time that's available to me. So I'm asking for the adjournment and I should have forced that issue to be argued in resolved. Because thinking that maybe I could get a better result because it was unlikely. The court would decide against me when I didn't get a chance to make full submissions, turned out to be a mistake. And we lost the case. Now it's not to say we would have won. Had I done it differently, but I certainly wish I could have a dual over on that one. That's very comforting to know that even somebody with your experience also has certain regrets and wishes for improvements happens every single time I'm in court. I don't ever, even in cases where we win. I'm still a very harsh critic critic, critic of my performance. I could have done this differently. I could have done that better. I could have done this more cheaply. It took too long. It cost too much. It's if you ever get, I think to the point where. You think you did a great job. It's maybe time to retire. Cause you'll never get that experience again. Yeah. That's good advice. You can't beat yourself up too much, but you got to try your best and do whatever you can under the circumstances. I agree with that. Well, these old gems of wisdom, and I'm sure it takes a level of experience to know when to push back on a judge and when to, uh, you know, stand down and that, you know, that does come with experience. I'm trying to keep the story somewhat chronological at this stage. We're at this vibrant law firm with all these leading litigators, and then I believe your next step was to the securities commission. How did that come about what ultimately made you jump ship from a law firm to go to the securities commission? Again, that was another one of those events in my life. I went to Harvard law school one summer. They offered a three week program back in the mid eighties, and I. And always wanted to get a LLM from Harvard, but I couldn't afford to do that as a younger lawyer when I was finishing schools. So that gave me a chance to go and see what Harvard law was really like. And it was a fab fabulous program. Anyway, they met her mantle, who was the executive director, the securities commission. And we talked several times and. Finally one day at lunch enrollment Ollie's table in Faneuil hall, we drank too much and he offered me a job to be sort of chief litigation counsel. And, uh, I said to him, you know, look, we've had too much to drink. You go home. I'm I'm going to Cape Cod for a week. When I get back. If you still want me to do the job, you call me up when you're silver and I'll probably accept when I'm sober. Um, so he called me up. I took the job. I took a significant cut in pay. Um, but it was the best professional experience anybody could have ever had. Let me here. I was a young guy who had great opportunities, but I was still third chair, sometimes standing in the back. Um, now I was going to sit first chair and I remember going in on my very first day of work and going into this empty government issued office. And there's a file folder on my desk. And so I put on my bag and. Sit down in my chair and open up the file folder and not on the top is a letter from John J Robinette to the securities commission saying, you know, will you please, uh, have one call because I'd like to talk about trying to resolve this case. I'm reading this letter and I'm thinking, come on, this is somebody pull a fast one on me. So I go down to our Mandel's office and I say, no, come on. You're kidding. And he said, no, no, no. That's the first case. I need you to resolve because we've been trying to get a done and the lawyer was supposed to be handling it just. Was too busy or whatever the reason was. So I got the call, mr. Robinett secretary, and she offered to have him come up to the securities commission. And I said, no, no, no. I'll come down to his office. He had a double office at C's, so his secretary had an office and then his office was in behind her. And I went in feeling like I was having an audience with the Pope. So I, uh, I did my best to not embarrass myself. We ended up making a deal. I remember he started the conversation by saying, you know, I understand you're new commission. Um, I want to wish you the best of luck with your career up there. And then he said, I think this is what the commission needs to get in order to settle this case. And. I had just taken the Harvard negotiating project at the law school. And Roger Fisher teachers' negotiation says the most. One of, if not, the most important aspect of a successful negotiator is to understand the needs of your client, what their interests are, and then figure out if you can give them that as part of a compromise. And so he then said, this is what he saw. I needed and proceeded to lay out something that was exactly what we had talked about internally. And then he told me what he could offer me, which was most of what I needed. But, you know, at that point, I think if he'd asked for the shirt off my back, I would have given him that as well. So I came back and said to her mantel, you know, here's what. So proposal is, and here's how we can settle it. And he said, sure. So I settled it right off the bat. And I got a very nice note from mr. Robinett afterwards, thanking me for being so gracious. I saw how much better does it get? I mean, here I am 30 years old, I've been practicing for a little over four years. And my first case is with. One of the greatest lawyers in Canadian history. Like at that point, everything else I get up there and I did some great cases, Canadian tire, Canada, malting and tore star. Um, but none of those experiences I think would ever top the. First experience I had with mr. Robinett, which is not an opportunity that I think very many young lawyers got to have in their careers. Wow. That's such an incredible experience to have at such a young age, and it must have set you on a path to success already. Um, you can talk more about the securities commission if you want, but as far as I know, from there, you went to Heenan Blakey. Is that right? That's right. He had, after five years at the commission, I got married after four years. And the funny thing about working for the government was while I was there, I got two promotions. Both times I had to take a cut and pay. Then when I went to then when it was time, time for me to leave. I didn't think I could continue to be the director of enforcement while I was looking for a job. So I got into motion to a job we created called special counsel, and I got a huge raise as a result of that demotion, but I was still making, you know, not enough to support a family. So I, and Ermanno and Stanley back who were my two mentors at the commission had both left. And so I knew. All good things come to an end and it was time for me to move on. So I did, but I couldn't find a job because while I was at the commission, I had been asked to create a, an effective enforcement program. And I believe that to do that, you ended up having to take cases against the mainstream of Bay street when they were appropriate. And so I had four or five. What I considered to be soft offers were senior litigation partners in major firms had come to me and had said, when you're ready to leave the commission, we want you to. Call us because we need somebody like you in our litigation group. This was back when the sec was getting into effective enforcement and white collar securities work was just starting. So I stepped down and I called all those firms and they all in the first call were very keen and, uh, all of them called me back and said, you know, listen, We're really sorry. But when we went to our corporate partners, our corporate partners said, no, we don't want that son of a bitch working for us. And in one case, one of the lawyers told me that the corporate partners were keen, but when they talked to a couple of their major clients, they were told that if they hired me, they would pull their business. So I, I spent six months essentially being blacklisted. And luckily again, for me, he and Blake, he was just opening up in Toronto. They were looking for somebody to start their litigation group. Um, a couple of lawyers, I knew very well work there. Um, I went down the Montreal and I was very lucky that they offered me a job. So I was the first litigator in Toronto. I left 10 years later, there were 25 litigators at that point. Um, and it was a wonderful firm. I have nothing, but. Good memories and good things to say about them. Um, but my practice changed dramatically when John Felder Hoff hired us in 1998. And so what I found was it was creating a tension with my partners and I just Scott increasingly uncomfortable. And I think they were increasingly uncomfortable. That’s it for part one. Tune in for part 2 which will be a released in a couple of days.