With the craze of Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, we were encouraged yesterday to participate in the movement of Giving Tuesday – a day dedicated to giving back worldwide and kicking off a season of giving.
Here at LESA we rely on our incredible volunteers all year round, but we’re happy to take the opportunity of this week’s Giving Tuesday to send a special shout out to everyone who gives so much back to LESA and the whole legal profession here in Alberta. Thank you!
With the hundreds of volunteers who work with LESA each year, we have a lot to be thankful for. While we can’t name you all individually in our blog today, we do want to send a special shout out to one of our standout volunteers – Helen Ward.
Helen has been lending her expertise to LESA since the 1990s, and she’s volunteered on 3 different fronts: helping prepare our practice manuals, speaking at our seminars, and helping in our CPLED face-to-face modules.
Her most recent contributions include quite the list of LESA engagements:
- Acting as a facilitator for CPLED’s Oral Advocacy module last year,
- Speaking at last year’s 48th Annual Refresher: Wills & Estates,
- Participating as a faculty member for the annual Intensive Advocacy program (you can learn more about that program in another blog),
- Serving on the panel as a faculty member for the upcoming Advanced Estate seminar happening in Edmonton (March 1) and Calgary (March 9), and
- Helping guide the development of the new wills & estates practice manual as a member of the steering committee.
As Helen says, “you give a lot and you gain a lot” by being a volunteer. In that spirit of reciprocity, because we’re so grateful that Helen shares her time and talent with us, we wanted to return the favor by sharing a little about Helen with you.
We hope you enjoy the chance to learn a little more about one of your colleagues!
Tell me about your law practice.
My practice focuses almost entirely on either wills & estates or mental capacity issues in adults. I’m a bit of a hybrid because I do both the drafting or the solicitor side and I also do the litigation side: so long as it’s wills & estates or mental capacity related, it all falls into my practice area. I quite enjoy having the mix … on the one side the planning, drafting, solicitor-type work and then also a good, healthy dose of the more contentious, litigation-type work.”
What interested you in law in the first place?
I did some public speaking and debating when I was in high school, and that’s probably when I first thought about it. Then I did an Arts degree. [I wasn’t] planning to go into law when I entered into Arts, but as it progressed I started to think about it. When I got into law school, I think I found a lot of likeminded people there, but I’m not one of those people who always wanted to be a lawyer since the age of 5.”
How you get into your practice area?
I never thought I’d practice in this area; I thought it was probably a fairly dry, boring area to practice in. When I was articling, I ended up working quite a lot with Phil Renaud QC – whose name is familiar with LESA, he does a lot of stuff for you – and he needed someone to help him with some estate work and some estate litigation work. I worked with him on a rather unusual file … when I was articling, and it just started to morph from there. I started to do that type of work; I enjoyed the clients; I enjoyed the practice. I was very lucky, because Phil mentored me a lot. The practice just slowly started to grow over the years.”
Tell me about your involvement with LESA.
I’ve always had a lot of respect for people who give presentations for LESA, so I was probably quite scared and honoured when I was first asked to give a paper. I really enjoy it. … You probably hear this all the time from people, but I’ll say it anyways: I always learn from volunteering with LESA; I always love connecting with the other lawyers who volunteer – and I’m always impressed by how much they do and the energy they have; I find it improves me as a lawyer because I learn. I also think that, as part of our profession, we do need to share our knowledge. Our firm has always promoted legal education; I articled here and have been at Duncan Craig all the way through. As well, for me in my particular area, it’s been a way for me to learn and probably increase my profile.”
What advice would you give to a newly called lawyer?
You never stop learning in this profession. It often takes, I think, about five years, until you feel comfortable or competent, so don’t despair that for the first year everything feels new. Ask for help, especially [if you] are solo practitioners or in small firms. I find that the bar is very helpful, it’s very collegial. I get cold calls often from lawyers simply because they have heard me speak somewhere. Generally we respond well to that and can find a few minutes to help.”
When you’re not volunteering for us or busy in the office, how do you enjoy spending your time?
I’m married to my wonderful husband Greg; we have two daughters who are 15 and 18 – so they keep me busy and on my toes. I love to run, so that’s something I love to do for sport. I’ve been, for many years, a community soccer coach and volunteer in the community. Spending time with my family is the other priority, and I have a great time doing that.”
