Canadian Lawyer

8 J U L Y 2 0 1 7 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m L ife came full circle last month for Paul-Matthieu Grondin. On June 15, the 33-year-old became the youngest president in the 168-year history of the Barreau du Québec. He was sworn in on the first day of the bar's two-day annual general meet- ing in Quebec City. "It's a real honour and privilege to be president of the bar," Grondin told Cana- dian Lawyer in an exclusive pre-conference interview. "I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting going." Grondin was born and raised in Que- bec's picture-perfect provincial capital. He left home at age 18 to study law at the Université de Sherbrooke and Queen's Uni- versity in Kingston, Ont. and then articled at the House of Commons in Ottawa. He has been in private practice in his own eight-lawyer firm in Montreal since 2008, and he has worked with two high- profile commissions. One was the federal Oliphant Com- mission, which investigated the financial dealings between former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber. The other was the provincial Bastarache Commission, which looked into allega- tions of influence peddling in the nomina- tion of judges in former Quebec premier Jean Charest's government. Those allegations were made by Que- bec City lawyer Marc Bellemare, who served briefly as justice minister in Cha- rest's cabinet. Bellemare's wife is Lu Chan Khuong, who was Grondin's principal rival in the recent election. Khuong made history two years ago when she became the first member- elected president in the history of Que- bec's Barreau. However, she was suspended and later resigned when news of her arrest a year earlier for shoplifting two pairs of designer jeans became a major scandal. Khuong's hopes for a comeback were dashed by a large majority of the nearly 12,000 Barreau members who cast ballots in the May 12 election. Grondin received 72 per cent of the vote to 28 per cent for Khuong. The president's term is two years, with the possibility of a second-term re-election. In addition to being the youngest-ever president of the Quebec Barreau, Grondin may also become the longest-serving one. Grondin credited his win to both a desire for change and the breadth of reforms he proposes in his 26-point action plan. "I want to go further in making struc- tural changes that will improve our profes- sion," he says. Grondin's proposals include increased transparency by making Barreau board meeting minutes available online, elimi- nating or substantially reducing fees for continuing legal education courses and slashing the president's current salary of $314,000. A former president of the Young Bar of Montreal who was elected to the board of the Barreau in 2016, Grondin also wants to lower annual fees from the current rate of nearly $3,000. "Compared to other provinces, that's not bad," says Grondin, who sat on the Barreau's audit and finances committee, which recently recommended fee cuts. "But it makes things tough for younger lawyers who are still struggling to get established and for non-practising lawyers who are proud of their title and want to keep it." Other hot-button issues Grondin prom- ises to tackle are working for the creation of a professional provincial association for lawyers (as opposed to the more regulatory duties of the Barreau) and working to end what he calls the "long-standing but despi- cable practice" of unremunerated articling positions — or even worse, of students paying for such positions. "It's a disgrace to our profession," says Grondin. "We can't force firms to pay arti- cling students. But I will publicly condemn and denounce those that are not doing so." Grondin also intends to push for the use of nameless resumés — an innovative idea aimed at eliminating potential gender or ethnic bias that the Barreau will test in a new pilot project — and to encourage male lawyers to take paternity leave. "Sharing the stigma of parental leave will help change things," says Grondin. "I'm not saying there is systematic bias. But we want to act on the feeling of it and to remove impressions of our profession as an old boys' club and to address the worrying trend of many women in their 30s leaving the profession or altering their careers to focus on family." Another worrying issue that Grondin wants to address is the supply and demand of lawyers in la belle province. "The number of lawyers in Quebec has doubled in Quebec over the past 20 years, but the population has only grown 15 per cent," says Grondin. "We need to find ways to help young lawyers open new markets." Grondin also intends to push for changes in Quebec's notoriously com- plex civil court system. He also slams the continued use of paper in Quebec courthouses. "It's hard to believe that in this day and age, lawyers in Quebec still have to physically go to a courthouse to open files and make three paper copies," says Grondin. "It's time we stopped living in the 19th century and took the digital turn." — MARK CARDWELL \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP Barreau president has ambitious agenda C E N T R A L Paul-Matthieu Grondin

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