Today, our Birmingham Law School campus Ambassador, Thulasi Jeyabavan sat down with Criminal Lawyer, Harpreet Saini for an interview. Thulasi explores Harpreet’s journey as a criminal lawyer who now runs his own practice in the Greater Toronto Area.
TJ: Hi Harpreet, thank you for taking the time to share your legal path! How about we start with you telling me a little bit about yourself?
HS: My journey is a pretty traditional journey from the Ontario law student’s standpoint, so this is pretty much your basic roadmap for the more traditional route. I did undergrad in Montreal Quebec; I went to McGill University. I did a four-year undergrad there and I went to law school at Osgoode Hall at York University and did my three-year law degree there. After that, bar admissions came first back then, if I recall, and then on top of that, I did articling. I articled with a law firm, back then called Hicks Blocks Adams, now Hicks Adams. I articled there, and I was immersed in Criminal Defense work. After I finished my articles, I tricked them into hiring me, they apparently thought I was competent, who knew? Then I was an associate there for around 9 years, give or take. After 9 years, I then went out on my own, and I’ve been a sole practitioner ever since. So that’s the basic voyage. Since then, most of my practices has been geared in the greater Toronto Area and a lot in Brampton, Toronto, Milton, Oshawa, Hamilton, currently I have a case in Windsor right now, but essentially anywhere I’m willing to drive in the Greater Toronto Area, and sometimes beyond that. I still practice primarily criminal defence, I do a little bit of immigration, but I try to focus more towards the criminal side of things. So that’s me!
TJ: When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer?
HS: Someone asked me that recently. So, I'll tell you what I told him. It's not the most awesome, inspiring message, but it's mine. After I finished law school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted a job. And I knew I wanted to work. So, I sent out the request for articling, like, everywhere. I sent applications to all sorts of different places. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to do big time fancy corporate law, I knew that wasn't me, but I was open to everything. So, I sent out all these applications, I got one interview. And it ended up being the place where they hired me. I lucked out. And let me tell you, when you have one interview, you prep for that interview, because it's the only one shot you got. So I went in there ready to go, and they hired me, and that's how I ended up being at a criminal defense firm. It's not inspiring. I know other people, they've got these crazy inspiring stories of how they always knew that they wanted to be a participant in the criminal justice system, and those stories are great. But I guess it's good to know that not everyone has that big inspirational moment, early in their life, or even in law school. Sometimes you just kind of fall into it. And then for what it's worth, once I started there, I was hooked right? It was like, okay, this is great. I'm happy. I ended up in this spot and it ended up being the perfect place for me. I was lucky. That's how I ended up knowing what I want to do.
TJ: Great! I was going to say my next question for you was going to be -- when you were certain that criminal law was the path for you -- but I guess you figured that out during your articles.
HS: Yeah, once you're in there, then you're like, alright, I'm in court every day, I get to do set dates, I get to research issues. And one thing I always tell people is that, you know, for those who wanted to be a lawyer from when they were a kid, when you’re a kid and you're imagining “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up,” you're not imagining doing corporate law, and filling out papers and contracts and litigation in that type of form. What you're imagining is being in front of a jury on a homicide case, making closing submissions or cross examining a witness on a murder, something like that. So, once you start doing that, it's hard not to get connected and hard not to get addicted to that rush.
TJ: Can you tell me about a case you worked on that makes you particularly proud?
HS: Sure. So, you have different types of cases, but let me tell you the story of a guy named- I'll call him B. Obviously, I can't say his last name, so let's just call him B. When I was articling, Mr. B was a rounder, he was a crackhead, amongst other drugs. He got picked up all the time, and as an articling student, part of my job was to go to jail, see him, give him the lawyers card who was dealing with them so they could talk, just get to know him, make sure he knew what was going on with this case. After I became a lawyer, because, you know, he was high maintenance, lots of phone calls, lots of late-night calls, the lawyer involved just said, “you know what, you deal with this guy.” So, I dealt with him. Now, his cases were minor cases, theft under possession of drugs, maybe possession for the purpose of trafficking, because addict users, sometimes, they become addict traffickers as well. There's nothing fancy or sexy about his cases. But what happened was, when I spoke to him, he was experiencing something that he had never experienced before. I would talk to him and I would listen to him. The lawyers he had been dealing with before, even at the firm I was with, brilliant lawyers, they were great, better than me, easily. Not all of them had the patience and bedside manner that I did. As time went on, I would talk to him and he had a great social worker who also worked with him as well. And the three of us, we worked together. And I always told him that listen, “three steps forward, one step back. You take a step back, you call me, I'm going to help you. And it sucks if you take a step back, but as long as you take three steps forward, I'm proud of you. That's all I asked of you, to take three steps forward.” Over the years, B would get arrested less and less often. He would still get arrested, but for a while, it was once a month, then came once every three months, and once every five months. And then a certain point it became once a year and it would always be when he relapsed. So, at this point, knock wood, B has not been arrested for several years now. And now he calls me every now and again and goes- this how he talks- “Mr. Harpreet, Mr. Harpreet! I’m just calling to say hi, Mr. Harpreet. Everything's fine Mr. Harpreet, I promise I'm not in trouble, I just wanted to know how you’re doing Mr. Harpreet.” And I'll chat with him for a little bit, and his social workers are still in touch with him. I'd love to tell you that the case I'm most proud of is some big sexy homicide case, where I won a murder trial or something like that, or some big trafficking case, or some huge moment in court; but the case I'm most proud of is not. It's a series of cases, and they're the cases of B, who the actual cases, by the way, sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. It's not as if I was winning all of them either, sometimes I lost them. But that wasn't the point. The point was, at a certain point, B slowly was able to extricate himself from the criminal justice system. And that's what I'm most proud of. And I don't know what he's doing right now. But right now, this second, I hope he's not relapsing. And I hope the next time I hear from him, it’s just to say, hi. So that's the case I'm most proud of. I'm very proud of B. And I'm very proud of the work I did.
TJ: That’s an amazing story! Aside from helping others, what is your favourite aspect of criminal law?
HS: It's the challenge of it, you're fighting against immeasurable sources, right. On the one side, you've got me, and you've got my client, and you have their modest retainer or their legal aid, which gives you limited resources, limited time, that you can put into a file, although you always go over the time anyways. On the other side, you have the crown, with their immeasurable resources, their infinite power. You've got the police and the resources that come with them, and you have the state, which is technically independent of them, but frequently, there’s the appearance that it's not so independent. They are independent but it doesn't always feel that way. So, the aspect other than helping people is- and I guess it's tied to it, is this notion of fighting for the little guy and fighting against the big guy and trying to ensure that the state is kept honest, because that's what the defense bar is, we are that thin, very thin line, that keeps the state honest and that's the work we do.
TJ: In your opinion, what is the hardest part about practising criminal law?
HS: The hardest part is, sometimes the inevitability of it all. Because oftentimes, you know you're going to lose, you have tough cases and those resources that are against you, they are infinite, and the deck is stacked and sometimes it feels like you're punching a wall. You can punch as hard as you want on that brick wall, but the brick wall isn't always going to give; you're going to get bloody knuckles and you have to steel yourself to that and that can be a very difficult thing. The wins are great…but the losses, they can really hurt you and they can really wear on you. Tied to that is the losses aren't just borne by us but they're borne by our clients and that's where it becomes the hardest because if I lose it's a blow to my ego, my giant, giant ego, but that's all it is! My clients though, they lose everything, they lose their freedom, they lose their jobs, they lose their families, they lose everything that they've been trying to put together in their lives and a lot of my clients they're not well off, they're on the lower end of socio-economic scale. And the littlest thing you know, 30 days in jail, it destroys them and anything they try and build up… those 30 days in jail will just wreck. It's a house of cards for them, so that's the hardest thing.
TJ: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot riding for them. Were you nervous about opening up your own firm?
HS: oh yeah absolutely! I was at this well-established firm, had a steady paycheck check, it cleared every two weeks, it was the same amount, I knew exactly what's going to happen. I was senior enough that they didn't give me a hard time, it was a good workplace. I had a good amount of control over my schedule. My work, it was comfortable, and it was easy, and I was there for so long it was like I was a piece of the furniture. It was fine. So, when you give that up and say all right, I’m going to take a risk, and you're opening up your own business, and this is not just true for law, for anything you give up your job where you're comfortable and it's easy and then you start something on your own and start from scratch. But still, that's a scary thing especially if you're risk averse. You're a business owner and that comes with all the fear that owning a business does. Now you're worried about your bills, you're worried about your law society stuff, you're worried about your dockets, and you got to get your billings in time, and you're worried about clients. Now also all of a sudden, your paycheck isn't always your paycheck. It's whatever came in that month.
TJ: How did you know you were ready to make that giant leap and to take that risk?
HS: You never know when you're ready! Other lawyers will tell you you're ready, and you feel these jitters in your heart like “oh my god, am I ready? Can I do this?” You know, some lawyers they have supreme confidence and if you're that person, I'm happy for you, but not everyone's like that. You think, “can I do this? Can I do this?” and that’s one answer. Another way to look at it though, is you objectively look at your files and you say, “if I were to leave my law firm today, how many files could I take with me, legitimately, and not act in bad faith with my firm,” because you want to leave in good faith, and you look at those number of files and say “all right, is this a good foundation for a sole practice?” You look at how many of these matters are going to go for trial, how many of these are legal aid, how many of these are cash, how many of these are bigger cases, how many of these are smaller cases, and you're trying to assess whether, based on what you've got, you have enough that you can make a living of it. If you're looking at your files and you're like “you know what, if I left today, I could take two files with me,” that's a bigger risk there and if you feel confident that you can go out there and hustle and get more files, more power to you but it's always easier when you know you're walking out with at least a foundation. So that's how I was able to tell.
TJ: How has Covid19 impacted your job?
HS: It's been huge. So financially, it's affected a lot of people, some more than others. But aside from that, it's really changed how we practice. So now, for example, remand court, your basic set date courts, they've been all converted to zoom, that's probably going to stay that way, even after COVID is done 20 years from now. But other things may or may not go back to normal, there'll be changes, who knows. In many ways, a lot of this was overdue. There was, in hindsight, there wasn't a reason in the world for us to have to go to a physical courthouse for remand court. We learned that. And I think that even though reasonable people disagree on whether you need to do trials in person or not, I personally am pro in person, that's my personal view, everyone seems to agree that you can do set date court by zoom. And set date court, it's a big factor of what we do. This means that I'm now home, three days out of the week, especially if you do your judicial pre-trial from home now, or the office. Now, basically, I'm only going to the courthouse for the big things, for the trials, which really decreases the amount of commuting.
TJ: What skills or qualities should students who want to be criminal lawyers have?
HS: Analytical. Be able to analyze. That's true in others areas of law as well. Have the ability to critically look at power structures and people who traditionally in parts of society are not held to scrutiny. So, you have to be able to look at a police officer’s testimony, and you have to be able to be critical, and you have to be able to scrutinize it and not just accept it just because they are a police officer. You have to be willing to not just be analytical and critical. But you have to be willing to make the fearless arguments, because oftentimes, the arguments we make are not popular. And if you can't stand the idea of being criticized for the arguments that you make, this may not be for you.
TJ: Any additional advice to law students who also have a passion for criminal law?
HS: If you're interested in criminal defense, that's great. What can I say other than the best way to learn criminal defense is to watch criminal defense. So, if you have time and if you have opportunity, and I know that not everyone does, because people have to work other jobs, have other classes, and I get that. But if you can, go to a courthouse, watch the lawyers work, watch the different lawyers, how stylistically, they're different. If you're comfortable with it, approach them and talk to them, some of them are going to tell you to go away some of them will not. Some of them will be willing to chat with you. As you may have figured out, lawyers love talking about themselves. That’s the best way to learn. And then as you see different lawyers and their different styles, you'll be able to incorporate them and make them your own and then eventually you'll have your own unique style as a lawyer. So that's the best advice I can give; learn from watching others, if you can.