#quinn ross

[lunnessey]

you know me well - quinn ross

quinn opens his mouth and it’s a different voice that comes out. raw. defiant. he’s not playing now. he’s testifying.

[blawgazine-blog]

Running Practice: A guide for young lawyers - Installment 1.

The Pattern Presents Itself.

By: Q.M. Ross

Those who know me can attest that in the search for ‘balance’, I am lost in the wilderness. 

Case in point, I took up scuba diving seriously in 2012.  The first thing I did was to befriend a skilled and passionate dive instructor.  

I immersed myself in the theory and practice of diving.  The math of it.  The physiology.  The evolution and current trends.

Within a year of starting I acquired 2 dry-suits, 2 BCD (the vests that your tank straps to), multiple sets of fins, masks, dive lights, dive computers… and on and on it goes. 

Since I started, I have logged almost 100 dives, I have progressed through several advanced levels of certification including one, which allows me to use blended gas when diving, and one that certifies me as a rescue diver.  I have been in water that was 0.5 Celsius and water that was 28 Celsius (28 is better).  I am currently preparing for dive master training, with the hope of an assistant instructor designation in the future.

More recently, I have found trail running.  The first thing I did was to befriend a skilled and passionate runner. 

I immersed myself in the theory and science of running.  The nutrition.  The mechanics of it.  The various and sundry schools of thought about everything from footwear to stride. 

I quickly acquired through donation, recycling and purchase 8 pairs of trial running shoes covering the gambit of conditions, including boots which would suffice for a running attempt on Everest.  I have a heart rate monitor, GPS watch that tracks more biometrics than a spacesuit, all sorts of high tech shorts, shirts, pants, jackets, hats, gloves and any other thing you can think of. 

In June 2013, when I started running, I could not run more than 2 kilometres without stopping to prevent heart failure and vomiting.  By September of that year I was regularly logging 20km runs on trails.  On December 21, 2013 in conditions, which could only be described as brutal, I ran 47km on hilly, slush, ice and snow covered trails.  I ran 2 50km races in 2014 (one finishing in the top 15) with my eyes set on 50 mile races in the next year.

10 years ago, I started my apprenticeship on the journey to become a lawyer.  I immediately sought out and fostered connections with skilled and passionate lawyers. 

 I immersed myself in the study of the law.  The procedure.   The advocacy skills.  The manner in which one evolves from being a student of the law to being a practitioner of it. 

I acquired new computers, legal texts, data management equipment and software, courses, memberships in relevant associations and a vast array of gadgets that improve the flow of information and increase my accessibility to the office and my clients.  

In my first year as a full-fledged lawyer I undertook the purchase, severance and environmental indemnification of an airport from the government for a client.  I also conducted (and won) a 5-day trial dealing with truly ancient and highly esoteric land law.  The following year, I took that case to the court of appeal and successfully defended that victory, relying solely on my written advocacy.  The year after that I built a group of over 40 landowners undergoing expropriation and conducted a total of 45 days of hearings at the OEB.

I am currently the Secretary of the Ontario Bar Association, I assist in the mentoring of two junior lawyers and have commenced the expansion of the firm into other regions.

It wasn’t until this morning, 7:15am, 9km into a hilly single-track riverside trial, that the pattern presented itself to me.  

And it is a pattern I see among all those who are driven to something.  First the object, task, endeavour that drives a person presents itself.  Then, as the saying goes, ‘when the student is willing, the teacher will appear’ (while I think that may be too passive, as those driven individuals I come in contact with, will seek out, stalk and generally assail a teacher, if one doesn’t  ‘appear’).  Then follows the process of domain immersion.  Then the investment in those tools designed to increase the efficacy, efficiency and/or outcome of the drive… and finally, and probably most importantly, the restlessness that keeps the student seeking out more and better ways to engage the passion that drives them. 

This pattern, as far as I can see it, is universal.  It is a recipe and while the ingredients may change, the method seems not to.

So what?  Who cares?  Well I suppose I do. 

Without the foregoing, I would be unable to recognize that my running feels like my law practice.  I would not be alive to why I am driven to seek out and take on more challenging, technical courses than the one I last ran.

 It is my hope with this blog to investigate both running and the law.  If successful I will bring together these two mistresses with the intent of getting to know both better, than I could if I were to contemplate them in isolation. 

I hope you will join me.