May, 2010

Every step matters to associate Jonathan Saumier who participated in the 2010 MS Walk on Sunday, May 30. Organized by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, the Walk is a major fundraiser held in 160 cities and towns across Canada. The Burchells team was proud to sponsor its newest associate, Jonathan and his girlfriend Emily Durant, who lives with MS.

Congratulations Jonathan and Emily!

May, 2010

Litigation partner Brian Awad was quoted in the most recent issue of Canadian Lawyer magazine , commenting on the Nova Scotia Supreme Court's recent decision in Peach v. Nova Scotia (Tranportation and Infrastructure Renewal) .  Brian represented the appellant in a freedom on information request resisted by the government on the basis of privilege.  In a landmark decision on access to information, privilege and waiver, he successfully argued that by releasing a summary of a privileged opinion the department effectively waived privilege over it. 

April, 2010

The following artcle featuring Burchells partner, Brian Awad, was published in the April 16, 2010 edition of The Lawyers Weekly and was written by Donnalee Moulton.

Lawyer by day, guitarist by night

Most days you’ll find Brian Awad quietly ensconced in his downtown Halifax law office or well-robed across the street at the law courts. Most evenings you can catch him gently tucking in his three kids and sharing the day with his wife.

Every other week, however, the University of Toronto law graduate can be found in a local bar on stage with his band Spitfire, bass guitar pounding, lights flashing and a dance floor pulsating with people.

“It’s therapeutic,” Awad, a partner with Burchells LLP in Halifax, told The Lawyers Weekly in an interview. “Between the practice of law and jointly parenting three kids, it’s all consuming.”

Music, he noted, is a brief, and invigorating, escape. But like law and parenting, it does require commitment. Awad’s band — recruited over more than a year through postings on Kijiji — rehearses weekly (after 8 p.m. when the kids are in bed) and then frequently plays Friday nights somewhere in the city. Start time for gigs: around 11:30 p.m.

“It takes a lot of stability and discipline to come up with a group of people who can regularly play three to five hours together,” Awad said.

Fortunately, he noted, music is also fun. “It’s refreshing. We’re laughing all the time.”

Inherent in the laughter is a good dose of reality. “We have no aspirations,” laughed Awad. “We also realize we’re not making art. We’re doing covers. We’re trying to imitate well.”

There is nothing imitative about Awad’s commercial litigation practice, which he launched by working first in the civil litigation office of the Ontario Attorney General, followed by a stint as a Crown prosecutor. The former, Awad noted, gave him invaluable experience as a litigator while being involved in cases that raised public-policy issues.

The latter provided him with incourt experience.

Being a Crown prosecutor was a destination career, Awad said. “It was not my long-term plan. The plan was to go into private practice.

“As a Crown prosecutor,” he added, “you would touch 30 or 40 cases a day. I wanted to be involved with a fewer number of larger cases.”

For Awad, who spent the first ten years of his life in Kingston, Ont., before moving to Nova Scotia, commercial litigation is a specialty — with variety. “As a private practice litigator,” he pointed out, “each new case can be a new subject matter. It can raise a unique problem.”

Finding solutions for those problems opened up a new, and somewhat unexpected world, for Awad, who says he “fell into” a career in law. “When I went to law school, I didn’t even know what a constitution was — now I have done constitutional law.

“What I enjoy about [the practice of law] now,” he noted, “is the analytical and problem solving element. Initially it appeared that lawyers were people who effected change. I still think that’s true.”

Awad is particularly interested in effecting systemic change, something at the heart of the work he did while working in Ontario. “As a Crown, you really have a responsibility to the system of justice and to make sure it runs as well as it can,” he stated. “There is a view to systemic issues. As a Crown, it was you, the defense and the judge trying to figure out a solution while still representing your interests.”

“Litigation for the sake of litigation drives me crazy,” he added. “I’m a very resolution-oriented litigator, for better or worse. I like to fight over what matters.”

Awad also believes in giving back. He is a founder and the current secretary of the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, a non-profit organization that encourages the use and development of freedom-of-information. Awad was counsel for the coalition in a 2008, precedent-setting case concerning whether Freedom of Information laws apply to arm’s-length government agencies. He also serves as legal advisor to the board of the Music Industry Association of Nova Scotia.

Like playing in a band, this is rewarding work, he said. “These are energized, engaged people who are focused on a common goal.”

Cue the music.

January, 2010