LESA is excited to extend a warm welcome to the newest member of our team: the Honourable J.E. Côté has just joined LESA as our first Distinguished Adviser!
This multi-faceted contractor position will see him filling many roles. We are looking forward to the insights he will share with us as we work to improve our offerings and expand our services. Not only will he be helping plan for the LESA lawyer-in-residence program that we plan to launch next year and identifying talented volunteers to partner with LESA on our programs and resources but he’ll also be providing feedback on our various offerings and giving short presentations to LESA staff, for staff development purposes.
It’s hard to pick the number one reason why we’re excited to have the Honourable J.E. Côté on the LESA team – there are so many to choose from – but perhaps we’re most excited that he’ll be sharing his insights with all of you through a series of short articles here on our blog. Keep an eye out for these fascinating pieces coming soon. If you haven’t already, follow the blog so that you’ll receive email updates and not miss any of his posts!
Since you’ll be hearing more from the Honourable J.E. Côté over the next few months, we thought you may be interested to learn a little more about him. Here’s a short snippet about his career and what he’s most looking forward to about this next transition in working with LESA.
Happy reading!
Where did you grow up?
Edmonton. In fact, I’m living on the same lot that I grew up on. My parents built a little old house, largely with their own hands, and I grew up there. Eventually we had to tear it down, and we built a new house. When I go out to work in the morning, I’m pretty well following the same route I did to go to Grade 4.”
What got you interested in law and involved in the legal profession?
My parents – for different reasons – had perfected the art of being badly underpaid for the work they did, and I decided I didn’t want to do that. When you’re 12 or 13 years old, about the only way you know of to make a lot of money – or you think will make a lot of money – is to be a lawyer. Everyone else I know went into law initially for idealistic reasons, but I went to law school thinking I’d make money. The other thing is that Sydney Wood QC was an old friend of the family, and he was a very old fashioned English-style gentleman. When I was 12 – I had just finished Grade 6 – I went over with my parents to his house for tea on Sunday, and he sat me down and explained to me that there were only four ways that a gentleman really could earn a living: one was law, one was medicine, one was the clergy, and I’ve forgotten what the fourth was. Then he explained what was wrong with the other three, so by the process of elimination it had to be law. He was a very pleasant, very engaging man and loved being a lawyer and was much beloved by everybody. So that was it. The final thing was when I was 12, I’d been very interested in archaeology. I took a book out of the Edmonton Public Library – a recent English book about archaeology, with a practical sort of approach to it. It said that no one was hiring archaeologists anymore, and you’ll never get a job as an archaeologist, so if you’re interested in archeology all you can hope for is to follow it as a hobby. Now, it turns out that was completely wrong, … but it looked as though law was it. When I was 12 I formed a desire to be a lawyer and stuck with it. My grandfather was a Queen’s Bench judge in Saskatchewan, and I visited him a few times. When I was about 13 or 14, he gave me a few of his law books, including the basic textbook he had used in Osgoode Hall back in the very early 1900s – and that encouraged me too.”
Tell me a little about the trajectory of your career.
It was pretty simple, really. When I was in law school I was very impressed by Bill Stevenson, and I got friendly with him. I asked to article in his firm. Then there was a [two year] delay because I did grad school in Oxford. … But finally the firm said they’d take me on. Bill Morrow was going to be my principal, but then, when I was on the ship coming back from England, he got appointed as a Judge in Yellowknife, so I articled to Bill Hurlburt and was very happy in that firm. Being a young lawyer, you have a lot of fears and stress. How much I liked the practice of law, I’m not sure, but the people were wonderful people to work with, and I never had the thought of practicing anywhere else. I stayed on with that firm for a long time, and eventually – like a lot of lawyers – I was getting stressed and tired of practicing law and so on. The firm said that there were some vacancies in Alberta and they thought they could help me get a judgeship. I didn’t believe that was at all possible. That was like retirement planning and winning the Irish Sweepstakes. But I said I had no objection to their trying. It took a while, but it came about [in late October 1987]. To my astonishment, I not only found myself a judge but on the Court of Appeal directly, which I never dreamt of for a moment. I then made my one change of job. Having been in the law firm for not quite 20 years, I then went to the Court of Appeal until mandatory retirement age, so I was on the Court of Appeal almost 28 years.”
Who were your biggest influences?
Bill Hurlburt and Bill Stevenson, definitely. In fact, I was very, very pleased that at my Court of Appeal retirement dinner we were able to invite Bill Hurlburt to come and be present. There are not many people retiring at the age of 75 having their former principal there. He’s still in practice with the Institute and with Reynolds Mirth. … Another big influence on me was Ronald Martland. He was one of the first Albertans appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, and, when I was one of the Supreme Court’s first articling students, he was my principal. He was a wonderful man and also an Edmontonian. …”
What are you most looking forward to about working with us at LESA?
It’s people contact. I could sit in an inside room somewhere, such as at home, and scribble away all day, because I could keep myself going to the day of my death writing – I have a million things I want to write. But I definitely want contact with other people, and particularly lawyers. I find the young lawyers and articling students are just wonderful these days. I think the people of my generation were fine, but the new younger ones are just excellent. It’s a great charge to work with them. I find that young lawyers want guidance and mentoring and someone to help quell their fears. … They are so genuinely grateful for anything you do that’s very pleasant having contact with them. One of the pleasures of being a judge was working with a group of excellent articling students. I used to be in charge of the articling students at the Court of Appeal for a number of years.”
