Today Precedent launches a new online column, Judge Foodie — restaurant reviews by Kirsten Thompson, a Toronto-based research lawyer and commercial litigator who estimates that her ratio of time spent in a restaurant vs. a courtroom is approximately 14:1.
I always knew I was different.
At client events in fancy restaurants, the other associates would be zeroing in on the head guy, whereas I’d be chatting up the headwaiter. They’d be trying to score an invite into the boardroom. Me? I’d be angling for a peek at the kitchen.
I love the entire dining experience: the food, the service, the ambience, the customers. Even bad food can be good. I recall a legendary dinner where a harangued waiter, never once having left the kitchen without a volley of abuse following him, emerged one last time and when the chef began yet another tirade, the waiter stopped dead in the middle of the restaurant, carefully placed all the plates he was carrying on the floor, removed his apron and tossed it onto the pile of plates as if signalling defeat, and strode out the front door.
Who among you hasn’t wanted to do the very same thing in motions court?
Fortunately, law and dining intersect or I’d have floundered early in my legal career. Thankfully, more cases are settled over dinner than in the courtroom; more deals are brokered over lunch than in the boardroom. The law steps in only where dining fails.
Dining is universal, and accessible – everyone has an opinion (steak cooked rare: pinnacle of sumptuous flavour or simply a red carpet to E. coli toxicity?). Lawyers, especially, have opinions. And needs.
So it is with great delight that I announce that Precedent, after cautioning me about Canada’s libel laws, has agreed to let me author a restaurant review column. The plan is for these to be reviews by a lawyer for lawyers, focusing on what you want to know: Is this a good place to have a business discussion or do the walls have ears? Where do I go if I want to impress our hard-to-impress New York co-counsel? Is there someplace nearby that isn’t cluttered with i-bankers on Thursday afternoons?
My goal is to be an arbiter of good dining for those of us who spend more time in restaurants than in courtrooms.
Kirsten Thompson is a Toronto-based research lawyer and commercial litigator. Since her call to the bar in 2000, she estimates that her restaurant:courtroom ratio is approximately is 14:1.
Photo: Colin Cartwright