Personal Reflection. The advocate's calling

• Author: Guy J. Pratte
• Pages: 167-180

167

R PERSONAL REFLECTION | SUMMER 2013

e avca’ callin

GUY J. PRATTE

It is a singular honour for me to assume the Milvain Chair in Advocacy

for 2013, particularly as I look at the list of previous incumbents, from

John J. Robinette through to Sheila Block and Linda Rothstein, along with

many others.

Only a great jurist and mentor like Chief Justice Milvain could have

inspired the creation of this remarkable advocacy program in 1979– one

of the rst, if not the rst, of its kind in Canada. As the advocate’s craft has

a history of more than 2,000 years, going back to at least Roman times

and Cicero, it should go without saying that I have no ambition today of

revealing some secret recipe that will ensure you win all your cases.

And, just in case I were tempted to deceive myself– and you– into

thinking that my experience as an advocate could be a source of unique

wisdom, I keep in a well-lit corner of my mind, etched in bold letters,

Abraham Lincoln’s reminder in the notes he prepared in 1850 for a lec-

ture on the practice of law: “I am not an accomplished lawyer. I nd

quite as much material for a lecture on those points where I have failed,

as in those where I have been moderately successful.”1

In fact, I will not discuss advocacy skills as such: that is the proper

subject of the course many of you are taking. Nor have I come here

1 S. Sheppard, ed., The History of Legal Education in the United States: Commentaries

and Primary Sources (Pasadena: Salem Press, 1999) at 489 [Sheppard].