Mostly this is a writing blog. But occasionally I write about other things. It seems to me that if I’ve got this plaform and I’m paying for it, I should get to have a few opinions. Today’s opinion is about John Carpay, a disgrace to the practice of law.
Why do I feel the need to call out a second rate Alberta lawyer who I’ve never met?
Well, I’ll tell you. Every writer needs a day job. I’m a lawyer. And I’m not going to be flippant here. I believe in it. I believe in something called Justice. In law school, my fellow students laughed at me, but I was a believe. I believed in the social contract, I believed in our innate duty to be decent, to be moral to each other. I believed that the practice of lawyer was to implement and negotiate that social contract, to help people in need, to help build a better world. It mattered to me. When I became a lawyer, I wore the robes, and I signed my name into the rolls. It was one of the proudest moments of my life, I became an officer of the court. And I believed that this was a noble and honourable calling, that carried with it a duty of integrity and ethics. It has been touchstone of my life.
Every now and then, I run across lawyers who basically wipe their ass on the profession, Dangerfield, a prosecutor who abused his power, Shead a commercial lawyer who helped swindle innocent people. These people offend me. They’re not just bad, they’ve sodomized the integrity of a calling, a cause, a profession I’ve given my life to. They’re abominations to me.
So what did John Carpay do?