Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m J U N E 2 0 1 5 17 lawyer's responsibility when he knows or strongly suspects his client is guilty. Freedman is robust on a lawyer's responsibility to represent his client fear- lessly. Some say this is an American point-of-view, different from the British and Canadian cautious approach that emphasizes a lawyer's duty to the court, a duty that must be respected even to the detriment of a client's interests. (I refer you to the Law Society of Upper Cana- da's bizarre persecution of Joe Groia — see my column in last month's Canadian Lawyer.) The strict and cautious view is well summed up in The Advocates' Society's Principles of Civility that warn: "Advocates cannot condone the use of perjured evidence and, if they become aware of perjury at any time, they must immediately seek the client's consent to bring it to the attention of the court. Failing that, advocates must withdraw." I asked two prominent and highly experienced Toronto litigators, both long-time benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada: What would you do if it was clear your client was going to perjure himself ? Both seemed uneasy with the question. Neither fell back on The Advocates' Society's Principles of Civility. One e-mailed: "I was taught that if you have (and keep) a client who you know will commit perjury on the stand, you can put him on the stand, but only ask him to tell his story when he gets on the stand. . . . Depending on the timing, the best course is to explain your constraints, at which point the client will likely retain someone else who is not so constrained." The other said, "Boy, that's a problem, that would be a mess." After a moment's reflection, he added, "I think you'd have to withdraw." Monroe Freedman was ever the gad- fly, sometimes humorous, sometimes cranky, often eccentric, increasingly gloomy. (Interestingly, his online stu- dent ratings are very poor, among the worst I've ever seen.) In 2013, still going strong, he commented on the Edward Snowden affair in a paper called, "Our inalienable rights can never be recov- ered." Wrote Freedman: "We live in a Surveillance State in a Surveillance World. It is ever expanding and omni- present. It can never be removed or restricted, and our Constitution, with its Bill of Rights and separation of powers, has been lost forever." In October 2014, Freedman and his granddaughter handed out opera lyr- ics outside Lincoln Center in Manhat- tan to protest the Metropolitan Opera's production of The Death of Klinghoffer. Freedman said the libretto contained passages similar to the language used by Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. He once told students: "As you contemplate the practice of law, you should understand that you may be called upon to represent people who, out of sheer greed, will hurt and even kill other innocent people. And if you can't handle that then you should not go into the practice of corporate law." And he was a member of the Flat Earth Society. Let us celebrate the gadfly! RIP, Mon- roe Freedman. Philip Slayton's new book is Mayors Gone Bad. Because business issues are legal issues. So if you want to get ahead in business, get the degree that gets you there faster. ONE YEAR – PART - TIME – NO THESIS FOR L AWYERS AND NON - LAWYERS law.utoronto.ca/ExecutiveLLM GPLLM Global Professional Master of Laws [Get a Master of Laws] Untitled-1 1 2015-02-25 8:38 AM

• Cover