As a mid-level associate in the 1990s, I was the junior on the file to a then public company called Zemex Corporation. The CEO was Dr. Richard L. Lister, who would later became a very close friend and mentor. His then friend and board member, Paul A. Carrol was not only a senior partner at Smith Lyons, but hands down the most powerful parter in the Firm. Like many Smith Lyons lawyers at the time, he was simply referred to by his initials, PAC.
Associates like myself just looked at him as if he was God. In addition to corporate work (including theIPO I had mentioned in K-0003 –729 am), there was not an office tower in Toronto at that time that did not have his fingerprints on it somewhere.
I had been working on a Zemex transaction and the plan, it being a US company and NYSE listed was to close it in New York after a shareholder meeting. PAC knew I was going to go to New York and told me the night before that he would pick me up at my house and we would go to the airport together.
As dark early morning arrived I was standing at the door of the house not wanting to be late. I heard the roar of PAC’s Acura NSX coming up
the street before I could even see it. Off to the airport we went like a
rocket, parked at valet parking (who knew such a thing even existed?) and
through the airport and to the plane for the quick flight to LaGuardia. As I
settled in to review some documents, PAC was reading his paper (a real physical newspaper) and sipping his coffee. At sometime thereafter PAC lowered his paper, looked over his glasses, turned to me and casually asked what I was up to generally.
Here was my moment with God! I started to tell him what I was doing from a business development and marketing perspective and who I was meeting and what I was doing. He let me talk, waited for a moment, took off his glasses and simply said, “Jay, stick with the program. Learn your craft, be the best lawyer you can be and the rest will come.” I felt my heart pounding, and my blood pressure rising (it is even rising as I write this 35 years later) and I could have throttled him. Here I was trying to impress him with all the business development activities I was involved in and he not only completely dismissive but downright negative about it all. My day was ruined and I was just miserable.
But, with the benefit of years and years of hindsight, he was absolutely right, although the timing of the learning moment may have been better. One of the other truisms I have learned along the journey is that as Rod Barrett (my predecessor Stikeman Toronto managing parter) said and proved (but more on that another time) good work begets more good work. And by “good
work” I mean doing good work. And to do good work, you need to be a good lawyer and know the law and the process and the practice area and all that goes with that. If you don’t have that (and while there are always exceptions to the rule) none of the marketing and business development will matter. The clients and business development can wait and believe me, will come naturally. In the meantime, I implore you, as PAC implored me all those years ago, learn your craft.