A sense of humour is an endearing quality, even in a lawyer. It can help you win the confidence of clients and colleagues. A flash of wit can signify a mastery of the facts. Lack of humour can be interpreted as being uncomfortable with the facts, like trousers that are too small. Too much humour, on the other hand, is like too much drink: it makes a display of the speaker at the expense of the subject matter.

Chapter 7 of Uta Hagen’s 1973 technical manual for the method actor, Respect for Acting, is devoted entirely to depicting the act of thinking. “Real thinking,” she wrote, “is active.”

In 1985, the year I entered law school, the Queen’s Printer published the new and last Revised Statutes of Canada. In 1990, 23 years ago this month, I took my place among the new crop of lawyers. That same year, Ontario published its last revised statutes.

Why is diversity proving so elusive for the Canadian legal profession? For a long time, we were actually ahead of the curve. The Canadian Bill of Rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act were the visions of three very different prime ministers, but each a lawyer: a criminal trial counsel, a law professor, and a labour lawyer. Lawyers and judges have applied these laws in the courts, to ensure they do not become — as in so many other countries — empty words. As author of the model Principles of Conduct for the Canadian Bar Association, I feel pride when I walk past the Ontario version in the OBA’s lobby and read these words:

Honour or victory — tracing the origins of the civility movement

Do the tools of our trade include insults and ad hominem arguments? Are we in danger of neutering the litigation bar? Should lawyers follow the “great trial lawyers” or bow to the “civility movement” in Canadian law? Or should they carry on with the time-honoured view of advocacy, as captured by Justice Riddell in his 1915 decision in Dale v. Toronto R.W. Co.: “a jury trial is a fight and not an afternoon tea?”

On Oct. 25 and Nov. 22, Canada’s largest law society, the Law Society of Upper Canada, webcast its debate on the future of articling. For the first time since 1797, the public caught a glimpse of the profession’s elected leaders going at it full throttle over the pressing issue of our day.

We baby boomer lawyers hate to admit it but we’re getting set in our ways and it shows. Aquarius’ ability to carry water is diminishing. The more experience we acquire, the more we draw on the bank of subjective judgment. Like used sponges, we absorb new information more reluctantly. In fairness, as I stumble to the gates of the legal quarter-century club, I appreciate more and more the physical energy it takes to keep the old lessons of my early career relevant. Aging and exhaustion are, after all, memetic equivalents. It is often easier to discount the value of the new than to figure out what it means. If we were talking about someone other than ourselves, we would call that being intellectually lazy. If it threatens our view of the world, then we can dismiss it as being invalid. When the analytical mind fails, we grab on to a crutch. We call that crutch common sense.

On May 16, tuition protesters stormed into law classes at the University of Quebec in Montreal. The law students had obtained an injunction allowing them to continue attending lectures despite the protestors blocking access to classes. Within the equivalent of a nursery for future lawyers, a group of masked students from other faculties breached the court order and demanded the law students leave their lecture halls.

September marks the real beginning of the lawyer’s year. In Ontario, we open our courts during this month. The cycle also starts getting busy after the summer, as do the law firms and legal departments supporting the nation’s business. For many new lawyers after their call to the bar in June, the end of the summer means both legal mentors and mentees working side by side, in earnest.

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings,” according to the American writer William Faulkner. Journalists have relied on a more graphic version of this advice. “Kill your babies,” they say to the novice reporter. If you fall in love with an idea or turn of phrase, chances are you’re the only one who can see the merit in it. Letting it go will save your work from relegation to the trash heap.