Remembering Eddie Greenspan

“You love something other than law,” Eddie Greenspan said to me. I had come to the end of my articling year and asked Eddie for his advice on what to do next.

I didn’t think it was possible for him to know me that well — I had spent a mere two months seconded to his office as part of my articles. But he absolutely did.

In an office where most lawyers he met wanted to follow in his footsteps and become Canada’s next great criminal lawyer, I suppose it was pretty obvious to him that this was not my goal. Yet Eddie, who died this week at the age of 70, didn’t hold it against me that I didn’t love the law, even though this is what fuelled his life and his career.

Regardless, I learned plenty about criminal law that summer in 2002 at Greenspan, Henein and White. I contributed just like any other articling student: diligently summarizing transcripts, nervously answering the night line when potential new clients called from jail and even making a few court appearances on my own.

But I also took on some more unusual assignments. Assignments suited perfectly to the articling student who loved something other than law, the student who would go on to start her own magazine. Eddie had me attend Idea City — a two-day conference about big ideas — and help him prepare the speech he would give at the event. And best of all, he had me summarize a poetry manuscript. Eddie had been asked to write the foreword for an upcoming book, and he approached the task with the same precision he would employ if he were preparing for a cross-examination.

The most amazing thing about Eddie, though, was that he let you in on things. I would be seated in his office for a meeting and he would get interrupted. The phone would ring or someone would drop by. He never shooed me out. I just became part of the scene that played out in his office that day. I learned so much from him just by sitting in his high-ceilinged King Street East chambers, a former bank building, as he rehearsed a speech, caught up with an old friend, dictated a letter to his assistant or talked with his colleagues about a case. I was immediately immersed and immediately welcomed.

Eddie and I kept in touch. After articling, I went to work as a media lawyer and our paths crossed on a few occasions. And then, when I did leave law to pursue my true love of publishing, Eddie became a key supporter. He not only attended the Precedent Magazine launch party and let us profile him and his daughter Julianna for a story about kids who follow in their parents’ footsteps, but he also once saved Precedent from potential ruin. As I’m sure his clients would agree, you want Eddie Greenspan in your corner. And I was so lucky and honoured to have him in mine.

Eddie Greenspan was a talented lawyer, a wise scholar, a great storyteller and an incredible mentor. He shaped our profession and the law itself. I was privileged to call him an advisor and a friend.