Mentoring with Ranjan Agarwal, Recipient of the Eric Hoaken Excellence in Mentoring Award

In this episode of Friends Who Argue, construction lawyer Web Haile speaks with the winner of the 2020 Eric Hoaken Excellence in Mentoring Award, Ranjan Agarwal. Ranjan is a partner and co-head of Bennett Jones' class actions practice who has achieved numerous accomplishments and accolades over the course of his career. Through the lens of his experiences, Ranjan shares lessons learned from Mr. Hoaken (a Bennett Jones colleague and mentor) and words of wisdom about wide-ranging topics such as mentorship, developing as a new lawyer, succeeding in practice as a racialized lawyer, setting priorities, and building a fulfilling career.    

The Eric Hoaken Excellence in Mentoring Award is granted to recipients in recognition of dedication to mentoring other advocates; generosity of time and expertise, with a commitment to assisting more junior advocates; commitment to The Advocates’ Society’s mentoring and educational programs; and professionalism in all aspects of his or her participation in the work of the Society, including mentoring and education programs.
 
 Ranjan Agarwal is a partner and co-head of the class actions practice at Bennett Jones. He is a seasoned advocate, having appeared before the Supreme Court on more than a dozen cases. A past president of the South Asian Bar Association of Toronto, Ranjan has held leadership roles in the Advocates' Society and has spoken at a number of the Advocates' Society's CPD programs, including programs regarding advocacy, business development, and at the Spring Symposium. Inline to become the president of the Ontario Bar Association in 2022, Mr. Agarwal will then be the first lawyer of South Asian descent to lead the OBA. Ranjan has also taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, where Web first met him. 

Web Haile is a construction and infrastructure lawyer practicing at Singleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP, in Toronto. She acts for construction project participants throughout the project life cycle, from drafting and advising on the negotiation of construction contracts to providing strategic dispute management advice and supporting clients during negotiation, mediation, litigation, or arbitration. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to Friends Who Argue, a podcast from The Advocates' Society.

Speaker 2: 0:08

Each episode, we'll bring you conversations with advocates across all areas of litigation who share their stories, insights, tips, and tricks from their journeys as advocates.

Speaker 1: 0:19

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Webnesh Haile: 0:30

Hi, this is Web Haile. I am a construction lawyer practicing at Singleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP in Toronto, and a co-editor of this podcast. In this episode recorded some m onths ago, I was delighted to speak to Ranjan Agarwal winner of The Advocates' Society 2020 Eric Hoaken Excellence in Mentoring Award. Ranjan Agarwal is a partner and co-head of the class actions practice at Bennett Jones. He is a seasoned advocate, having appeared before the Supreme Court on more than a dozen cases. A past president of the South Asian Bar Association of Toronto, Ranjan has held leadership roles in The Advocates' Society and has spoken at a number of the Advocates' Society's CPD programs, including programs regarding advocacy, business development, and at the Spring Symposium. Inline to become the president of the Ontario Bar Association in 2022, Mr. Agarwal will then be the first lawyer of South Asian descent to lead the OBA. Ranjan has also taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, where I first met him. So Ranjan, congratulations on winning The Eric Hoaken Excellence in Mentoring Awarif Um, this award, uh, as folks don't know, honours advocates who are committed to and excel in mentoring other advocates.

Ranjan Agarwal: 1:41

Thanks. And thanks for having me on the podcast. It was a real honor to win that award, and it's, uh, very nice of you to include me on the people that you're talking to on this podcast.

Webnesh Haile: 1:52

It's our pleasure, Ranjan. So in your view, what does it mean to be a good mentor as a lawyer and an advocate?

Ranjan Agarwal: 1:59

So when I first started practicing, um, I thought mentorship was really focused on the teaching aspect, um, of, of advocacy and of being a lawyer. And I still think that's a really important part of it. Uh, you know, obviously, you know, a mentor should be, I think, in part there to guide you in how to navigate, uh, the areas in which you practice. And I think, uh, a good mentor, especially in the advocacy field will be there to guide you through some of the, the tricks or tips or some of the, uh, pratfalls that may come, uh, from being an advocate in our courts. I guess over time, um, my feeling about what it takes to be a good advocate or a good mentor has changed in a couple of ways in part, because of my personal experience, maybe just I've gotten older or wiser or, um, uh, maybe I've encountered mentors of a different type, but, you know, I think, I think a good mentor should also be a champion for your career. Someone who's prepared to help you advance your goals, uh, to put you in spots in which your career can take off in the directions that you want. Um, I also think a good mentor, um, should be there to check in on you, uh, really as your authentic self. Um, you know, we talk a lot about mental health in our profession. I, I think an important part of mentorship right now, and probably forever more will be about ensuring that, uh, people are leading balanced lives, that they are having an opportunity to, uh, um, you know, to have a fulfilling career. But at the same time, you know, are, are ensuring that their mental health, uh, is safe. Uh, and, and finally, I, I think a good mentor, you know, will be candid. Uh, you know, I, I think sometimes you need a mentor who will say to you look, uh, if what you want your career to look like, or if this is what you want your practice to look like, or, you know, if this is what you want your personal life to look like, maybe what you're doing right now isn't good for you. And maybe you need to find out other opportunities or maybe even find out other mentors. And I think what ends up happening, if you view mentorship from that perspective is you end up having in your life and in your career, lots of different mentors that do lots of different things. And I've been really blessed to have mentors. I think the traditional view of a mentor is someone who's older than you in your practice area. Um, you know, like, like provides you guidance in that respect, but, you know, I've had mentors, people who are in different practice areas, people who are outside of profession, people who are younger than me. Um, and so, you know, I think mentorship is way more, uh, nuanced than perhaps I first thought it was when I began practicing.

Webnesh Haile: 4:47

Mm, interesting. So it sounds to me like you think mentorship is much broader than simply teaching. It's also elements of counseling as appropriate. It's elements of sponsorship, a term I've heard used to refer to, uh, someone in a more senior position usually, um, putting forward someone else, a promising candidate for opportunities. So it really is just supporting someone in a variety of ways to help them achieve the goals that are personally important to them. It sounds like that's what I'm hearing.

Ranjan Agarwal: 5:16

I've both sought out mentors in that vein, and I've tried to emulate that. In, in other words, when I, you know, when I, uh, when I find myself in a relationship with someone who either I'd like to mentor or, or they they'd like me to mentor them, you know, it's never that formal, but organically, you know, sometimes I realize, uh, that what I, what that person needs is very different than, you know, someone else who I'm in a mentoring relationship I need. And I do think if you wanna be a good mentor, I do think it takes, it takes a lot of effort on your part to really think about what you're delivering to the person in that relationship. And sometimes it's about acknowledging that you're not the right mentor for them. You know, I I'll just give you one quick example. I, I was paired with a young lawyer through The Law Society's equity program many years ago when, uh, they were running an equity mentorship program. And this lawyer, um, you know, wanted to become a sole practitioner. He was really in interested in how technology would fit into his sole practice. I had very little skills to offer them in that regard. I work in a big firm, you know, I have a, a passing knowledge of technology, but ultimately, you know, we, we use the technology that's been vetted by our IT department. And I wasn't, you know, up to date on the kind of technology as sole practitioner I use. And so in some ways I, I saw on my role as finding other relationships for him that would be accretive to what he wanted to accomplish with his career and his practice, as opposed to sticking to the mentor relationship that he was seeking out for me.

Webnesh Haile: 6:50

Mm-hmm<affirmative>. So what motivates you then to dedicate time to mentoring young advocates?

Ranjan Agarwal: 6:55

Well, I, I, you know, I, I thought a lot about that question before we got together today, and I, I think ultimately it's a sense of duty, a sense of paying it forward. I mean, I, you know, I do want to acknowledge, I, I think mentoring arises in, you know, the Toronto advocacy bar from an old tradition of pupilage, right? I mean, barristers learn the trade, literally sitting at the desks of their principles. And I think we have morphed that, you know, very old practice into the mentoring relationship as we promote today. Um, and maybe it's unique to the Toronto bar, maybe it's wider spread, but I do think a certain type of mentoring relationship is developed in our community. And so I do feel a sense of paying that forward because I've had extraordinary mentors in my career. I mean, I also get joy out of meeting, um, people who are from different walks of life, different professions, or I should say different practices and engaging with them, learning from them. Uh, and finally, you know, I do, I do feel a sense of obligation. I mean, I, I mentor a disproportionate number of South Asian lawyers. And part of the reason I do that is that, you know, I want to encourage a community, uh, for people who might not find one in the profession, sort of in the traditional parts of the profession. Um, and I want, you know, young lawyers of that background to know that they can, they have someone can call, even if it's because of an ethical issue or a practice-base issue. I, I don't want anybody to feel alone because they happen to be in a sole practice, or they don't have a lot of friends in the community or a lot of mentors in the community.

Webnesh Haile: 8:33

Mm. And I'd love to circle back on that in a little while, but, uh, first I'd like to discuss The Eric Hoaken Award. So this award commemorates, the memory of Eric Hoaken, a former Advocates' Society Board Director and litigator, fantastic litigator, who was known to be generous with his time and very kind in guiding his, uh, mentees and young advocates. I understand that you knew Mr. Hoaken well. He was a former boss and colleague and, and also mentor.

Ranjan Agarwal: 9:00

Yeah, I, uh, yeah, Eric was, uh, an extraordinary number of things to me. He was first and foremost um, my mentor, I mean, we were partners at Bennett Jones. We were friends, colleagues. Uh, I was privileged to carry his bags to court more times than I can count. You know, I, I, I remember so sharply the very first time I met Eric, it was just a few days after I had started at Bennett Jones. Uh, I didn't learn this till later, but he had summered at the same firm that I had summered and articled. And I had lateralled over from Hicks Morley. And the result was, is that he had, uh, with me a common interest in employment litigation. There weren't too many lawyers practicing that at Bennett Jones. So he immediately got me involved in, uh, an employment law case he had, and, you know, to this day, it'll be a, you know, and I, I wish I had had the chance to ask him this question. Um, I, I don't know what attracted him to me. I, I know why I was attracted to have him as a mentor. I, I don't know why he decided to spend as much time with me and on my career as he did. We came, I think from very different backgrounds. Um, you know, he was the son of a, of a doctor in Kingston. Um, you know, he had gone abroad to do his legal studies. Um, his wife, Lisa, who is an extraordinary person in her own right, um, had traveled here from South Africa. Uh, they were a North Toronto family, uh, very different than my background. Um, but you know, something, something about our relationship clicked. And, you know, one of the great things about him was very early on, uh, the occasion to spend time with his family. Sunita and I were a young couple, my wife, Sunita, and I were a young couple. Eric had invited us over and I'll, I'll just share this story, cuz it tells you a little bit about his personality. You know, he, one of the first years I was at Bennett Jones, he had this party for all the associates and, you know, we were included in the group that was invited and we went over and there was lots of lawyers there around the same time the next year, uh, he extended an invitation to his house again and I presumed it was an annual event. Uh, and Sumita and I showed up somewhat fashionably late only to realize that it was only gonna be us and Eric's family for dinner. Uh, we were embarrassed that we were late and we didn't realize that it was just gonna be us. And he had four, um, he has, uh, uh, four children. Uh, his oldest Greta is actually a law student at U of T right now, a second year law student. They were, you know, preteens at the time. Um, and, uh, or, or his oldest was a preteen at the time. And, um, you know, we had this lovely family dinner with them and I remember leaving there, Sunita and I thinking, you know, that was the kind of life we wanted. This warm, you know, he was a Bay Street, lawyer successful. He was an extraordinary trialer. He had a great amount of experience in that area. Um, you know, like I said, his wife, Lisa was just this lovely, smart, warm personality. His children were as perfect as you could imagine. They were well spoken and behaved and, and friendly. And he had this beautiful house. Like we lived in a condo at the time. Um, you know, I had learned about his practice. It was incredible. And you know, he was every thing I wanted to be and a lawyer. Um, I learned about him as a man, as a father, as a husband. And he was just an extraordinary role model to me, you know, more than just a mentor. He was just the kind of person I wanted to emulate in my life. And, you know, I could go on and on about Eric ad nauseam. I'll just, I'll just say this. You know, one, one of the things about mentorship is some times people mentor you without you even realizing it. You know, he, he left Bennett Jones to join Lax O'Sullivan. I think, you know, he had decided his time and a big firm was over and he was interested in a new challenge. And I have no doubt that he whispered in Mike Eizenga's ear, at the time, Mike was co-chair of the Class Actions practice with Eric and he whispered in Mike's ear. I think, you know, a little bit of for Mike's benefit, you know, you're gonna need someone to help you out with the practice. I think Ranjan might be in the right place and the right time to do it. But I also think he was looking out for me. I think he wanted to ensure that there was someone there who could look after my career and the way he had. And, you know, the result was Mike and I have become extraordinary friends. Mike is know an extraordinary mentor to me. We are co-chairs with Cheryl Woodin of the practice group at Bennett Jones. We met you obviously teaching together at U of T and you know, I always look back and I think, you know, Eric, even in, even when he was departing Bennett Jones, when our sort of former relationship was ending, he was still mentoring me in the act of departing. And I owe a lot of my career today to those acts by him.

Webnesh Haile: 13:38

What a remarkable man. And it is really lovely to hear, uh, more about the man who is the animating spirit behind this award. So are there any lessons in particular that you'd like to share with our listeners about being a good mentor or a good advocate, which you learned from Mr. Hoaken? I mean, it sounds like is an incredible role model and there's anything in particular you'd like to highlight?

Ranjan Agarwal: 14:00

Yeah. You know, so Eric, um, Eric was, uh, he was an aggressive lawyer and he, uh, prided himself on knowing his way around the rules. He was technical, I think when he needed to be, he had great judgment. He was great with clients, all of those things. But I think some of the, my best learning opportunities came from him, uh, when it came to the tactical side of litigation. I mean, I'll tell one, just brief story about him. I, I never, I've never met anybody who loved security for costs motions more than Eric. Uh, he would drop them on counsel all the time, obviously, you know, when he could meet the legal test to do so. But they're the kind of motion that you don't always think of. Like sometimes you, you get into litigation and, you know, they're towards the back of the rule book and you're caught up in pleadings and discovery, but you know, he, he took a lot of pleasure in, uh, dropping a security for cost motion on an unsuspecting opponent, which inevitably meant, you know, if you were successful that the plaintiff had to, you know, put into escrow, you know, a significant amount of money just to get going on the action.

Webnesh Haile: 15:09

Mm-hmm<affirmative>.

Ranjan Agarwal: 15:11

Uh, he also loved using rule 39 exams. I, I mean, these are really modest points about him, but he, I, I think my takeaway from him was that he, he understood the tactics of the law, the strategy of the law. And he always used that to advance sort of the overall objectives of the case, you know, he never lost sight of that. He was also a very ethical lawyer. Like he was always pressing me and others on his teams to think about whether we were doing the right thing. Um, and I often went to him, you know, seeking guidance about practice points or ethics points to make sure that I understood that I was on the right side of the rules of professional conduct and just good generally and civility. And, um, you know, I've always tried to emulate that in my practice.

Webnesh Haile: 15:58

So you mentioned hat you had quite a different background from Eric. What led you to become a lawyer? Were there any formative experiences in particular that stand out, or was it a natural evolution?

Ranjan Agarwal: 16:08

Yeah, I, I, and I'll, I'll, I'm gonna share this story only because I think I love hearing about, about how people became lawyers and mine, I don't know if it's unique, but it, it, how I got there wasn't exactly preordained. I mean, I like a lot of children of immigrants, um, there was a high expectation on me to become a professional. My parents really didn't care whether I was gonna be a doctor or a dentist or an engineer. I think there's a stereotype, especially in the South Asian community that well up until last month, um, now you have to become a vice president, but before that, it was really important for you to become a doctor. My parents weren't that keen on, on that issue. And frankly, I think my father saw the writing on the wall cuz I was no good at biology. Um, early in high school I joined the debating team. And just, just to put in context, I went to Old Scona Academic High School in Edmonton. There's only 250 students. It is, uh, purely grounded in academics. It's a public school, so much so that we had no gym, but as you can imagine, uh, the captain, of debate team might as well have been the captain of the football team at another school. And I remember my father, uh, at an open house or a parent's night seeing this young man speaking and thinking, saying to me, well, you, you gotta try out for the debating team. Uh, and I was a pretty shy high schooler. Um, I didn't have a lot of friends. Uh, I was very introverted, but I joined debate team and I excelled at it. It, it was a really formative part of both my high school and my postgraduate, uh, academics. And of course, you know, when you're on the debating team, you're a big talker and you're interested in politics and social sciences. And immediately people would say to me, well, you should become a lawyer. And so it's sort of the two things kind of fit together. I, I would become a lawyer. And, and I tell that story part because I did not really know until I think I started practicing law that people weren't litigators. I just kind of assumed.

Webnesh Haile: 18:06

<laugh>.

Ranjan Agarwal: 18:06

That if you were a lawyer you were, and that the majority of lawyers were litigators. I didn't really realize until I got to Bennett Jones that in fact litigators were sometimes in the minority. I mean, the other part of it just, just to put it out there is that, you know, growing up in Edmonton, I remember reading in the local paper, it was a southern paper, The Edmonton Journal, a story about a Bay Street lawyer that made$400,000 a year. I, I don't know what firm he worked at. I don't even know if they mentioned him, but again, you know, coming from a very modest, lower middle class background, the children of immigrants, that story is not new to probably many people who are gonna listen to this podcast. Uh, that, you know, that might, that might as well have been a million dollars a year. And so, you know, part of my goal in life was to enjoy the kind of financial freedom that my parents wanted to have for their family, but necessarily couldn't. Um, and so, you know, becoming a Bay Street lawyer was immediately something that I was attracted to. Um, you know, I, I, I I've shied away from telling that story sometimes just cause I, I don't wanna make it sound like it's all about money, um, or financial success, but you know, over time I've learned that, you know, it's just a part of who I am that, you know, that financial struggle growing up, um, again, as a children of immigrants, you know, that, you know, that get baked into your personality.

Webnesh Haile: 19:27

As a child of immigrants also, I can certainly, um, I think a lot of folks can resonate, uh, with that story and the motivations that underlie that. So it sounds like part of the reason you became a litigator is because you didn't know there were other options. Um, but, uh, is there any reason you started, uh, drifting towards class actions? Was it sort of being steered towards Michael by Eric's departure or were you already, uh, headed down that path?

Ranjan Agarwal: 19:52

When Eric, uh, departed, you know, part of the advice he gave me was he said, look, you know, now that you're a junior partner, you've gotta seek out lawyers to work with.Your internal market in your law firm has to probably include lawyers of a certain seniority. You know, people who are charging out at a certain rate and as a result can accommodate having you on the file. You know, and Eric and I had actually stopped working together in part because, you know, we were, you know, our, our rates were getting close together. I, you know, I wasn't always the most appropriate person to junior for him on a file. And he also wanted the opportunity to teach others, um, not just me. Um, and so he'd encouraged me to seek out Mike, um, you know, Mike, uh, was, uh, is a past president of the Liberal Party of Canada. He's been involved in politics for a long time. Um, and so he has an interest in public policy issues. Um, and, and so we, I, I think I helped him out with a couple files that were tangentially related to class actions, but had a policy aspect to it. Maybe even a constitutional aspect to it. He sought me out. And at one point I remember him coming to me and saying, look, uh, are you interested in getting more involved in class actions? And I said, yeah. And, and I think to answer your question most directly, what, what attracted me, what was attracting me to class actions was I've always been a big process nerd. I I've always loved the rules of civil procedure and class actions is largely procedural. Um, but I've also really liked the part about class actions, where it deals with ordinary disputes, right? I mean, you don't, you don't get a lot of disputes in a big commercial practice where people are fighting over, you know, what was said in the marketing materials when they went to the auto dealer. Or how a bottle of orange juice is labeled. Or what's at the bottom of a hotel folio. I mean, a lot of those kind of consumer cases and, you know, those, those just struck me as really middle class, every day, ordinary Canadian cases that you could get your arms around. And so I was attracted to that, that part of the practice. And I also liked the fact that, you know, I could do some products, I could do some competition, I could do some employment, but all within the rubric of class action. So, you know, Mike said to me, look, I, I can make you a class action lawyer. You're gonna have to devote some time to it. And the way you're gonna do it is you're gonna be my teaching assistant at the class I teach at the University of Toronto. Uh, you're gonna help me edit the textbook. Um, I want you to help me do pitches, like a lot of the soft stuff that came with being a class action lawyer. And then, you know, over time he just started throwing me into cases and, you know, that developed both my skillset and, um, my experience and, you know, to, to where I am today, which is co-chair of the group with him. And, um, you know, obviously leading class action files of my own.

Webnesh Haile: 22:38

Having taken it, it was one of the more entertaining, uh, classes that we took. Mike has a lot of great stories from his time in the trenches. And so highly recommended it if any law students at U of T are, are listening now.

Ranjan Agarwal: 22:50

Um, yeah, it won't. And I, and I know he will listen to this, so I don't mind saying it, but it won't surprise you that many of us at Bennett Jones can recite those stories, perhaps even better than he can, having heard them over and over again.

Webnesh Haile: 23:03

A July of 2020 Globe and Mail article noted that only 19.3% of the province's lawyers identified as racialized in 2016, which is 10 points lower than the population at large. Um, this is according to Law Society of Ontario statistics. Based on the Globe and Mail survey of the 20 largest law firms in Toronto, the percentage of lawyers from racialized backgrounds drops off even further at the partnership level. So I know you mentioned earlier, uh, you know, being dedicated to mentoring folks from a South Asian background, I'm sure in part, because of this discrepancy. As a successful partner and leader at a large Bay Street firm in legal community as a whole, Ranjan, do you have any advice for racialized lawyers trying to succeed in private practice?

Ranjan Agarwal: 23:48

Yeah. I mean, that, that's a big question. And so I'll, I'll try to, you know, be helpful in my answer, cuz I, I think we could talk, you know, for hours on the subject.

Webnesh Haile: 23:56

Forever, yeah.

Ranjan Agarwal: 23:56

Alone. You know, I, I think so the first thing I'd say is, do not, um, get overly caught up in the fact that you're a racialized lawyer. I, I, I don't want a racialized lawyer for a moment to forget that the profession is undergoing a profound change as is the rest of society, you know, and the Black Lives Matter movement, uh, has really, you know, focused. I think our attention on a lot of struggles that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color are facing in the broader society, you know, and in the profession itself. But you know, I, I think if you become overly focused on your background and your, and the color of your skin and your race and your ethnicity, it's easy to get caught up in that moment. And, and to forget that you have made it this far, you know, to graduate, to get into law school, to graduate from law school, to get called to the bar, to find your way, whether it's into your own practice, into a mid-size practice or into a big practice, to be in-house or to be in government. That is an extraordinary achievement. Not everybody can do that. And the fact is someone saw something in you to get you to where you are, and ultimately it had nothing to do with your race. It had to do with your skill. It had to do with your experience. It had to do with, you know, who you are. And so sometimes I worry, you know, when I talk to some racialized lawyers, they are overly focused on the challenges they face because of their race, as opposed to the obstacles they've overcome despite their race. And I, so I, I think my, my first sort of piece of advice is to really focus on what got you here, the strengths that, that got you to where you are, and to try to build on those. Um, the second one I, I think is it's not something I have done as much of in my life and I try to do more of, but it's to be your authentic self, uh, to try to be as authentic as to who you are in the work environments that we find ourselves in, it is exhausting to have to zip up the white version of yourself when you walk into the office or you walk into a cocktail party, or you walk into, um, a recruiting event. It is mentally draining. It is tiring. And ultimately it's not who you are. And I think we are at a point in our profession where, you know, difference is being celebrated. People should be their authentic selves. And I, the only way in which we move that along is if more racialized people bring their authentic self to work. And I think that's everything from, you know, um, ensuring that people pronounce your name correctly to celebrating your faith or your culture in the ways you would with your friends and family at the office, with your work friends and your work colleagues. I think it's sharing the unique parts of your background with the people around you. Um, and I think it's exploring, uh, career and practice opportunities that are creative to, to who you are or the culture you're in. Um, you know, I think there's lots of opportunities for racialized lawyers to take advantage of the rise, for example, in racialized businesses or the rise in racialized executives and big corporations to create communities of affinity, um, to take advantage of, of that new burgeoning, uh, environment to build their practices. Um, and then finally, uh, I think what I'd say is, uh, you should, uh, continue and, and look, I'm, I'm given everything I've just said to you, I'm obviously biased in this favor, but I think you have to pay it forward. And so I think it's really important that South Asian and racialized lawyers continue to do that, um, in all different ways. Uh, you know, referring work to, uh, minority lawyers or racialized lawyers, um, trying to propose and support, uh, racialized arbitrators and mediators, uh, you know, when you're suggest names to opposing counsel. You know, I just think that's part of the job of being a racialized advocate in our profession today. And I think that's how you continue to advance those interests.

Webnesh Haile: 28:15

Do you think that firms and legal organizations are improving the way they address barriers to advancement and promotion for racialized lawyers?

Ranjan Agarwal: 28:24

So I would say yes and no. Um, there is clearly a strong, uh, desire to be more responsive to what is happening in the broader society around us. You know, whether that's directly related to Black Lives Matter, whether that's directly related to this era of truth and reconciliation that we find ourselves in. Whether that's, you know, related to the demands that clients may be putting on lawyers and law firms, because they themselves are more diverse. They themselves have more diverse customers and clients, and as a result, they want their service providers to be more diverse. I do worry that I think we are still in a performative phase where we do a lot because we wanna be seen as doing a lot. And when I say we, I mean the profession, I, I don't speak to any one organization or firm. Um, and, and, but I do think more has to be done really around unconscious bias. Um, because I do think we still, as a profession have blinders on. The number of times that I see panels or conferences, uh, where the speakers are majority white, um, uh, you know, the, the rankings that come out from best lawyers or chambers in all of our practice areas. Whether that be construction or class action, labor and employment, commercial litigation, where the vast majority of the ranked lawyers are white. Uh, the number of times I've been in court, um, where the lawyers are mostly male, uh, if not, what if not all white? I mean, I, I, I'll just one quick story. I, I had the real privilege of acting for an intervener on a case that was to be heard on justice, Chief Justice McLachlin last day as a sitting judge and sitting Chief Justice of Canada. And before the hearing got started lawyers, whether it was planned or impromptu stood up to offer their congratulations and that appeal, it was a big appeal, lots of interveners. It was man after man, after man that stood up to offer their congratulations, not, not by any design, but simply by the fact that the counsel teams themselves were not diverse. And I think that day I was the only minority lawyer in a courtroom of 40 or 50 lawyers. I think there were 20 interveners on that case. And you know, that, that, that is a result I think of us still having blinders on about the way in which we recruit talent, the way in which we mentor talent, the way in which we advance talent inside of our legal organizations. Um, because I think there are still people who are self-selecting out of big law firms, big legal organizations, big in-house departments, big government departments, because they don't believe they, there is a good fit between them and the rest of the organization in part because, um, of these unconscious biases.

Webnesh Haile: 31:24

So you're obviously a very productive person. Um, how do you find time to mentor, to be a teacher, uh, to maintain your active and very challenging practice, to serve as a leader in a variety of roles? Um, how do you find time to accomplish all of that?

Ranjan Agarwal: 31:42

Um, well, I have extraordinarily supportive people around me. I mean, to start, you know, my wife, Sunita has always been supportive of me being my best self and pursuing, uh, my interests and hobbies, uh, and my pursuits, uh, to the fullest extent possible. Uh, and so she has always been very supportive of that and encouraged me. She's also been a great check, uh, on me. She's, she's always making sure that I'm not, you know, taking on too many burdens that are, you know, not accretive to my own personal goals or to our goals as a family. Uh, as they've gotten older, my children have been an incredible support to me. I, I, you know, one of the happy circumstances of COVID, uh, is that, you know, we were all home together from March'til August. Um, I was running for second vice president of the Ontario Bar Association. And so I had to run my campaign from home. And I only realized after a couple of weeks of making campaign calls that, uh, my two daughters could recite, uh, almost verbatim my stump speech or my stump call, cuz they'd been listening in. And they were very happy to give me some advice about how I could improve that, what they thought was a little funny about the way I was saying things. And they helped me practice my speech, my candidate speech. They helped me videotape it. They gave me good constructive feedback. So they've been supportive in their own way of, of those, um, objectives or goals that I've had. I've also had extraordinarily supportive partners. You know, I, I, I only became involved in the profession, uh, in large part because of Jeffrey, Leon. I mean, he joined Bennett Jones shortly after I did. And you have to understand, like in 2006, the Toronto office of Bennett Jones, you know, I, I could see, and I do see sort of the diamonds in the rough. There are some extraordinary lawyers there, uh, but they were in their, you know, early forties, late forties, they hadn't quite, you know, reached the plateaus that they now have. And Jeff Leon joined us and Jeff had been president of The Advocates' Society chair of Pro Bono, Ontario. He had won The Advocate' Society, civil, Civility Award. He was a Law Society Medal recipient, like he was, and is, a giant of our bar. And, you know, I looked up to him a lot and immediately realized that, you know, he was someone who gave back to the profession in so many ways. Um, and you know, he jokes that the, the, that his life is the law. And, and that's why he's done that. But, you know, in some ways I think that's true about me too. I, I have, you know, I love the law. I love learning about the law. I love interacting with lawyers. You know, most of my friends are lawyers and, um, and the result is that I've, I've wanted to spend as much time in the profession as I can doing the kind of things around the law that I love. I mean, there's some things I, I don't like, I I'm, I'm asked every year to coach mooting or to judge mooting and for some reason I just can't, uh, get my energy up for mooting exercises. I don't know why that is. I loved mooting as a student.

Webnesh Haile: 34:55

The mooting years are behind you.

Ranjan Agarwal: 34:56

Yeah. But I, I don't know why. It's, it's, it's one of the things I just, I don't like doing. Um, but I love teaching. I love writing. Um, I love being involved at the OBA, um, mentoring, uh, from an organic standpoint. I, I don't find any of those work. And so the result is that it's not challenging for me to spend my quote unquote, nonbillable time doing that kind of work.

Webnesh Haile: 35:18

So maybe the answer to my next question is do what you love to the extent you can, but what is your advice to young lawyers or lawyers who might be, mid-career now balancing a lot of, uh, personal family and work obligations about pacing themselves to avoid burnout while they're pushing themselves to do their best work and to give back?

Ranjan Agarwal: 35:37

So I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give, um, our listeners, your listeners, uh, advice that Eric gave me, which is, you know, to treat the first four or five years, your practice, not unlike a medical residency. In, in other words, be entirely laser focused on the skills of the law. So, so with that advice, let me just step back a moment. Uh, what I took from that advice that Eric was giving me as a very junior lawyer, because what he was saying to me was look, you don't need to worry about business development. You don't need to worry about profile building. You don't need to worry about building a practice. What you need to do as a junior lawyer is worry about how to do an excellent discovery, how to write a great factum, how to know the rules inside and out, how to be a good civil, competent professional that meets their ethical obligations. You know, if you're gonna spend 1500, 1800, 2000 hours a year doing anything, do it on skills-based training. And, you know, I've tried to give that advice to junior lawyers all along. But, but in some ways what he was really saying, I think what I've taken from that as I've gotten older is that the profession and your time in it is gonna be very long, right? I mean, you could practice for 30 years. And I do think we are all in a hurry to get to the next best thing, right? Like we, we are in a big hurry to junior on something, then we're in a big hurry to lead it. And then we're in a big hurry to have our own case. And then we're in a big hurry to be in the Court of Appeal or in the Supreme Court of Canada or whatever it is. And, you know, I think, I think really what you have to do is you have to have a plan for your career. Um, and I think you have meet some milestones along the way, but you also don't wanna get ahead of yourself cuz I think that's when people burn themselves out. And if you start, you know, racing to the next milestone or worrying about other people, your peers who may have achieved certain things, um, without being laser focused on what's best for you and your family, and your ambitions, um, then I think you may lose sight and that, and that's where I think you might injure yourself. So, you know, for me, again, it may be my cultural upbringing, but family is, was and is supremely important. So, you know, you know, getting married, um, you know, having a spouse, having children, spending time with them, being an important part of their life has been really important to me. And that has resulted in me making some sacrifices along the way, but always keeping in mind that there is a time when I can do that. I mean, I'll give you one really easy example just to give some life to this. Um, Barb Murchie, who is another great mentor of mine. Uh, bencher at the Law Society, um, was encouraging me to consider running for bencher in the last round. Um, you know, I'd been involved in a lot of the statement of principles and challenges facing racialized, licensees, working groups work. And she thought that my interest in the profession and my desire to give back would be a good fit as a bencher. But one of the things she told me was to be a really good bencher, you've gotta devote 800 hours a year. I don't know if that number's right or wrong, but I knew Barbara devoted that amount of time. And I think she is, uh, was, and is an extraordinary bencher. And so I had to think really hard about what, how much time could I devote from my practice and from my family and from all the sort of other activities I was doing. Could I carve out 800 hours? And of course I couldn't. And part of the reason I couldn't is that I'm at that age and stage where I really want my practice to take off. I really want my career to take off. I really want our practice group to take off. And so I had to make a choice, which was that, look, I, I can be a bencher 10 years from now. If that's something I want to do, maybe it won't be something I wanna do, but I don't need to rush to that goal today. Now on the flip side, there are young lawyers like Atrisha Lewis has been an extraordinary bencher.

Webnesh Haile: 39:28

Mm-hmm,<affirmative>.

Ranjan Agarwal: 39:30

An extraordinary advocate for the concerns that I'm interested in. She's done that at a more junior level. That's a good fit for her. And I commend her for that. And, but I think that's a great example of how you gotta find the opportunities that fit nicely into your life, as opposed to fitting your life to the opportunities that may present themselves.

Webnesh Haile: 39:48

Let's onclude on a, a bit of a fun, uh, question let's imagine that it's July 16th, 2021, which is a Friday by the way. Uh, we've all been vaccinated against COVID 19, so we can now live our lives as we once did. And I'm sure Bennett Jones has all kinds of contingencies, but let's pretend that there's been a great blackout of, you know, 2021. You have no internet access, no power. And having migrated all your systems online, you now cannot do any work or law related activities. How would you spend the day?

Ranjan Agarwal: 40:20

So I, of all the questions you asked me, this is the one that caused me the most dread only because I, I fear that I will disclose, um, a very uninteresting and perhaps nerdy part of my personality, but, but to be fair and to be my authentic self, um, I think I would spend the day this way. Uh, so first I, I, I'm gonna take your answer, or I'm gonna take your, your hypothetical as suggesting that I can't do law related activities, but I can probably find my way, you know, to a Netflix or something like that. I think I would start the day, uh, with, uh, catching up on the Star Trek series. I'm a huge Star Trek fan or nerd. And I, one of the things I've been doing in COVID is I have been, uh, working through all of the Star Trek series from the 1950s forward in chronological order, uh, which has just been like a pet project of mine. So I probably do that much, the shagrin my family. They think it's an incredible waste of time that I devote part of my day to that. But in any event, that's how, if I had to choose, that's how I would probably start the day. Um, you know, one of my favorite things to do, uh, is read the newspaper. I I've had a newspaper subscription since I was very young. I get The Post and The Globe, and The Times. Uh, I never can really get into the Sunday New York Times. I read a lot of the headlines, maybe a couple stories here and there. So if, again, if I had a Friday without any law related work, I would probably dig out the last edition of the Sunday Times and spend some time in that. Um, I'm a big reader, as I think lots of lawyers are, um, you know, I love buying the top 10 New York times books of the year and my wife will tell you, I love having them collect dust either on my virtual or on my real bookshelf. I can never tackle all of them. Some of them are just too big to tackle. I mean, they, they always put a big nonfiction biography in there. This year was Barack Obama's. Um, and they are just big books to tackle. But, uh, if I could spend some time, uh, with the top 10 list books, I would, I, I love that quote from the game of throne. You know,"a man who doesn't read at the end of his life has lived his own, but a man who does, has lived a thousand". And, um, you know, I, I used to read as a young person in part because I was quite introverted. Uh, again, I, I didn't have a lot of friends and, and books were, were a great source of adventure and imagination for me. Um, one of the things I love doing with our family or we love doing as a family is games. We have, uh, we have almost every UNO game that has been developed. We're keeping that company in business. Uh, we used to have a lot of the really basic board games, but, um, we have discovered, um, a lot of the, uh, a lot of the classic, uh, if I can call them that board games, uh, as they've gotten older, like Monopoly and Clue and Sorry!. Uh, so if I could spend an afternoon with the girls, uh, without any work, I think it would be on a buffet of board games. We would just roll through various versions of UNO and, uh, Sushi Go! And Clue and see who was the champion at the end. Uh, and then finally, I think the end of the day, uh, a big dinner, um, you know, with family or friends, I know we can't do that in COVID and maybe because of COVID, I'm much more, uh, desirous of, of having a big family or friends' dinner. You know, one of, and I mentioned this in the, earlier in the interview, I mean, Eric would have us over, um, you know, either on our own or in small groups for dinner at his house. Um, you know, one of the first people my daughter visited after she was born was Eric's family. They had us over a couple weeks after she was born. And so we, I've tried to pay that by having colleagues and friends and associates over for dinner at our place. One of the first purchases we made when we moved into our forever home was a, a table that seats eight. And it's been a lot of fun having people over and catering dinner and enjoying people's company, um, in that kind of setting. So I would love to end a Friday like that. Uh, no work with a day of socializing with those people around me.

Webnesh Haile: 44:42

That sounds like a wonderful day. So everybody turn your air conditioner on July 16th, 2021, and let's make it happen.<laugh>.

Ranjan Agarwal: 44:47

<laugh>.

: 44:47

I'm just kidding. Uh, but Ranjan and it's been a real pleasure to speak with you. And I think, uh, really an eye opening, uh, experience. Lovely to hear more about Eric Hoaken, a remarkable man, and also to hear from yourself, a really a rising star in the legal profession. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Ranjan Agarwal: 45:05

Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you saying that and having me on.

Webnesh Haile: 45:09

Thank you to Ranjan Agarwal for are sharing his memories of Eric Hoaken and thoughtful insights on mentorship. Thanks to my co-editor Ian Breneman, our production leads, Natalia Rodriguez, Kristen Duerhammer, and Zoe Oxaal. To Danielle Baglivo of Dentons, our technical sponsor for her editing assistance, and to The Advocates' Society team for their support.

Speaker 1: 45:29

That's it for our show. We hope, hope you enjoyed listening to this episode and that you'll tune in next time.

Speaker 2: 45:35

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Speaker 1: 45:40

Friends Who Argue is brought to you by The Advocates' Society, an association of advocates with over 6,000 members from all areas of practice across Canada. For more information about The Advocates' Society go to www.advocates.ca or follow us on Twitter at@advocates_SOC.

Speaker 2: 46:02

Until next time, we are Friends Who Argue.