From Defence to Offence: Criminal Law Practice as a Prelude to Politics

• Author: Frank J. Mckenna
• Pages: 255-260

From

Defence

to

Offence:

The

Case

for New

Brunswick

FRANK

J.

MCKENNA,

PC, QC

1994

You

might wonder

how

being

a

criminal lawyer prepares

you to be a

provin-

cial

premier.

In

fact,

the two go

hand

in

hand much more than

you

might

think.

It

seems that almost everything

I do,

almost every skill

I

need

as a

politician,

is

enhanced

in

some

way by the

discipline

and

experience

I had in

the

practice

of

law.

I can

think

of a

hundred times when

my

legal

training

or

my

courtroom experience

has

been invaluable

to me in

politics.

For

example,

to

practise criminal law,

you

must have

an

indomitable will

to

win.

You

have

to

want

to win so

badly that

it

makes your teeth chatter when

you go

into

the

courtroom.

You

have

to

want

to win so

much you'll

do

almost anything with-

in

legal bounds.

If you

don't

do

that, you'll lose

a

lot, especially

in a

criminal

court.

You

must

be

prepared

to do

everything

you can to

win.

I've become quite refined

as I

have become

older.

When

I was

younger,

I

was so

competitive

in

court that every time

the

prosecutor started making

progress

on

cross-examination

or

making

a

significant

point,

I got

upset

and

spilled

the

water pitcher

all

over

the

table. While

the

jury

was

watching

me

run

around,

trying

to mop up the

water

and

clean everything

up, the

prose-

cutor usually

hit his

best points.

I

remember doing

a

bootlegging case.

An

Indian woman

from

one of the

nearby reserves

was

charged with bootlegging,

and I

couldn't think

of any way to

win.

Finally,

I

went

out to see her at the

reserve

and, while visiting her,

I

realized that every woman

I met

looked

255