Canadian Lawyer

12 www.canadianlawyermag.com FEATURE CROSS EXAMINED REPRESENTING ELDERLY IN COURT AND BEYOND Melissa Miller made partner in January 2020 knowing she wanted to fight for older people — then COVID struck "I thought, that's it. That's my angle. This is, in my opinion, an apolitical, bipartisan, moral and ethical issue, to have national standards for long term care." MANY OF Melissa Miller's most meaningful relationships have been with the elderly. Miller grew up in a remote area in Ontario and didn't have many friends her age. She would do chores for seniors who lived nearby and loved to sit around and chat with them afterwards. Miller was also the first person in her family to get a post-secondary education. She decided to live with her grandparents to save money when she started her undergraduate degree in Toronto. When her grandfather died unexpect- edly, her relationship with her grandmother became even more meaningful. "It was just my grandmother and me, and we became extremely close. She is and will remain my soulmate." Miller began her studies in art but quickly shifted to political science and philosophy when she realized that a career in law would suit her better than being an artist. After graduating from law school in 2009, she articled at an insurance defence firm but realized she was more suited to fighting for individual clients. After spending many months considering her options, she joined Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP. "Everyone in the defence world told me how great the firm's reputation was." Miller quickly knew that personal injury was where she wanted to be, but she became frustrated by how the justice system treated seniors. "I would see the attitudes around some of my older clients. It really bothered me that there was so much ageism that my older clients were facing in their cases. And I really started to see a gap." What she was hearing from the insurance defence bar and even from judges or media- tors about her clients was, "there's no loss of income here," "they're old anyway," and, "they have all these medical issues." "What I started to really notice in my elderly clients is [that] an injury which may not impact you or I … was impacting my elderly clients a great deal because it was resulting in a real loss of independence." Once Miller decided to start taking these cases on, her firm focussed on providing rele- vant content on their website and "the calls started flowing in." As her practice began to grow, Miller had conversations with the senior lawyers at her firm about making partner. These lawyers told her that elder law would be an excellent area to pursue because of her passion. So, she joined the partnership in January 2020. However, 2020 had more dramatic plans for Melissa Miller. When COVID hit in March 2020, there was a brief pause, and then the calls came in from families with an elderly parent in long- term homes. "It became very clear that we needed to take the bull by the horns. So, we started investigating a bunch of these cases initially." Things escalated when Cathy Parkes contacted her. Parkes' father had died at the Orchard Villa retirement home, and she had spoken passionately about the need for accountability. "Cathy Parkes is the lightning strike that happened to long-term care homes." Miller began speaking more to the media in the late spring, and the calls for legal advice exploded. "It was just like an exponential influx of calls. I couldn't keep up. It was unbelievable. We had to restructure our team because of these COVID cases and the way that they were all piling in." Miller soon realized that simply liti- gating was not enough to address the concerns about COVID and long-term care facilities.

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