As I write this, on my desk are the files of those students who have applied for a student-at-law position with the Court in 2016/17. I have also just met the five, third-year law students who are taking the Internship programme this Court offers in conjunction with the University of Calgary. A common thread runs through the backgrounds of all these students, and it is this: I am a fraud.
Well, the accusation is not made directly, but it is pretty clear after reading about all the remarkable things these students have done in their comparatively short time on earth that I am woefully inadequate by comparison. Most of us have had the nightmare in which the university from which we received our law degree calls up and says that it was all a big mistake and the degree must be returned forthwith. If my alma mater looked at my file, and compared it to the student files currently sitting on my desk, I would think that at the very least I should expect a call asking me to hide my degree, and solemnly undertake to never disclose the name of the granting institution (except at fund raising time, when universities call all graduates including those who are dead).
Without doubt, if I was applying for an articling position…good grief, if I was trying to get into law school, in competition with the current crop of applicants, I would have spread out before me a career in which the question, “Would you like fries with that?” would loom large. As an aside, reports that during some sentencing hearings I have asked, “Would you like to super-size that?” are exaggerated.
I must confess that my résumé is a little thin on entries such as: “I’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro”; or “I have won championships for Canada in snowboarding”, or “Recently, I spent several months building schools for, and teaching, the disadvantaged in Africa”. Even at this end of my career, there is nothing remotely close to that on my résumé, much less when I was a student. In comparison to the people I am interviewing (which seems akin to the Jim Carey character from “Dumb and Dumber” interviewing Albert Einstein), someone pushed the “pause” button for the last several decades of my life.
Frankly, sometimes these files remind me of those Christmas letters people send in which they catalogue the fatal diseases for which their children have discovered cures since last year’s letter, and updating you on the Nobel prize total for the immediate family. I feel pretty good if I can just report that everyone is still alive.
Now, I wish to be clear that the students themselves are delightful; they seem completely oblivious to the fact that they are but a few steps short of being god-like creatures from Greek mythology. They are courteous, enthusiastic, and, seemingly, completely hoodwinked into thinking that because of age we on the committee know something. Often, they actually seem a bit nervous about appearing in front of a panel of judges for an interview. Now, if, while waiting to be called from the reception area, my assistant has tried to reassure them by saying that the panel is gentle and kind, they have wisely not uttered the type of response Dorothy Parker made when she was told that a particular person was “always kind to her inferiors”. Ms. Parker replied: “And where does she find them?”
Happily, I am not required to make full disclosure to the students of the comparatively meagre contents of my own C.V. As I sit across from one of these students, it reminds me of playing poker while holding a hand in which I am still striving to make a pair of anything. However, I have figured out the trick to success: appear confident, maintain eye contact, and, at all costs, never, never, never revert back to one’s true calling by saying, “Welcome to McDonalds! How may I help you?”
The Honourable Judge A.A. Fradsham is a Provincial Court Judge with the Criminal Court in Calgary. His column "A View From the Bench" has been a highlight in Canadian Bar Association newsletters for over 15 years.