1. How did you get started as an immigration lawyer? What are your primary areas of immigration practice?
When I was called to the bar in 1988, I thought about what I might do as a lawyer that would not involve me just hanging around in the local registry office, an
d I erroneously thought that immigration law would be a good option because it would allow me to travel the world.
I was told that in those days, immigration lawyers were going off to Hong Kong with a briefcase of files to meet with visa officers and resolve issues related to prospective immigrants from there. However, I learned that here in Kingston, where I lived and worked, and still do, we did not have any files like that, and in those days, location mattered. What we had in Kingston was eight federal penitentiaries and thousands of people behind bars, a significant fraction of whom were foreign born and potentially deportable. So, having developed an interest in the subject, I started helping those among the prison population who had admissibility hearings, refugee claims and deportation appeals.
Later, my practice morphed into the family immigration area. Now, I handle a broad range of unusual cases and I try to develop strategies for people in complicated situations, for instance, those who need to demonstrate their humanitarian and compassionate circumstances, establish that they are rehabilitated, or who seek to get into the country to be with family despite their inadmissibility. However, it is a feature of living and working in a smaller city like Kingston that I am exposed to a broad range of immigration issues. It would be a bad business plan for me to restrict my practice here to Nigerian refugee claims. I would go hungry quickly.
Happily, although I did not travel the world as I hoped that I would, over the years the world has travelled to me. While working here in Kingston I have had clients from more than 135 countries over the years and have been pleased to learn about their countries in the course of preparing their files. I am travelling vicariously but, perhaps ironically, the final destination is always Canada.
2. What motivated you to join the OBA Citizenship & Immigration Law Section Executive?
I was a member of the OBA Citizenship and Immigration Law Section in the first five years of practice, but I drifted away after the membership fee increased. I rejoined the OBA around 15 years ago and I have been a member of our Section Executive since then, except when it is required to step down to comply with the Section Constitution.
I came back to the OBA those years ago when I realized that as a sole practitioner living and working in the backwoods of Eastern Ontario, I needed the support of other lawyers to understand my chosen practice area if I was going to be able to specialize in it. By re-joining, and by stepping it up to join the Executive, I was able to wean myself from the other areas of my practice, to take on a broader range of immigration files, and to develop the support network we all need when we are confronted with new challenges.
The CBA immigration lawyers’ ListServe has stitched together my understanding of Canadian immigration law. I file the majority of the emails that come in every day in very specific categories so I can find them when I need to, and that compendium of shared experience is what I believe gives me the edge over those lawyers who are not members.
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