Its been 25 years since I graduated from law school ….

Next week, the Class of 1991 is holding its’ 25th Reunion. Our Class has organized it on its’ own because our Law School dropped the ball. It seems it was unable to reach people in our Class to tell them about the reunion. Strangely, the people who didn’t learn about the reunion, continue to receive emails asking for donations. I’m guess those people are probably not responding to those emails. I digress.

Twenty-five years sounds like a long time and to be fair, it is, though looking back on it, it flew by in the blink of an eye (oh boy do I sound old).

During my career to date, I’ve seen some big changes in the law and how we practice law in Ontario. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen many things stay the same and that is troubling. We still don’t have computerized filing of Court proceedings in Ontario. We still don’t have enough Judges. We still have Court Houses that are too small for the population they serve.

On the positive, we have wide ranging, meaningful legal research data bases available to us online. We have legal education that is available province wide through Webcasts. We have the Law Practice Program (LPP) as an alternative to Articling (for now). We have a push to embrace technology and use it to strengthen our legal skills.

From a personal point of view, I’m proud to have contributed to the case law applying the Oppression Remedy to Creditors. I’m proud of having worked to create a High School Mentor Lawyer program in Halton and I’m proud of working with the LPP Candidates to Mentor new, young lawyers to achieve their potential.

Given how quickly these twenty-five years flew by, I am excited (though not in a rush) to see how incredible the next twenty-five will be!

Inga B. Andriessen JD