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The Wellness Docket is a podcast for lawyers and legal professionals ready to prioritize their mental health. Through honest conversations with guests from inside and outside the legal world, we explore burnout, balance, and the pressures of practice—creating space for reflection, recovery, and resilience in the profession. This is a space where your wellness is always on the docket.
Tim: [00:00:03] Okay, so I am here with Matt Hiltz and I'll give a quick bio here. Matt is a lawyer with a deep commitment to advocacy, leadership, and public service. He holds a law degree from the University of New Brunswick and is a member of the Law Society of New Brunswick. The Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Association of Labor Lawyers. Matt provides legal advice and representation to New Brunswick Nurses Union, where he also serves as a chief negotiator for three collective agreements and leads on policy and legislative matters. A graduate of the 2017 Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference, Matt remains actively involved in planning future events and also serves as Vice Chair of the CBA Pension Plan, and has advanced his education as a trustee through the International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Matt brings powerful insight into the intersection of personal trauma, mental health and legal work, reflecting openly on his journey of self-awareness, healing, and growth. And so, first of all, Matt, I want to thank you for being a part of The Wellness Docket, to this episode. And then secondly, I wanted to kind of set the stage on this and just kind of say to the viewers and the listeners that where I really stumbled on your story as I saw some kind of LinkedIn posts where you were talking about trauma and some of your past history. But then I wanted to dig deeper into that.
Tim: [00:01:33] So you and I have kind of had an ongoing conversation for quite some time about that. And so, first of all, why don't you start by telling us kind of a little bit about your journey where the trauma comes from as a lawyer and some of the challenges that you've experienced.
Matt: [00:01:55] Well, thank you, Tim. Glad to be part of the session. I don't know how powerful my insights are. They're authentic, though, and so I guess that's the key when you talk about, you know, I grew up as a Gen X kid, right, in the early 70s in Moncton. And, you know, my family lived down the street from a either registered or unregistered sex offender. So I was, you know, I was a victim of sexual abuse as a child. And I don't, I don't know, I've never really talked about it with my family. I don't know how much they know or knew, but either way, it was one of these things that you kind of bury deep inside you, right? And, you know, you hope never comes out and you never have to deal with it. But I guess you find out the hard way that that's not possible. Right? It's not possible to live your life with some… that kind of shame and that kind of secret buried.
Matt: [00:02:48] Buried within. Right? And so for me, I once I realized how it was affecting how I showed up, you know, as an executive director, as a husband, as a dad, you know, as a colleague, as a member of a team. That's when I realized I needed to get help. I needed to confront it and deal with it. So.
Tim: [00:03:15] And so what age were you when you first kind of started dealing with the ramifications of what happened when you were a child? Like when did you first realize that?
Matt: [00:03:22] Well, I mean, I you know, you always kind of it's always it was always in the back of your mind. But I don't think I ever really, really said it out loud. Right? And I just read something actually, last night on LinkedIn, somebody did a study and said, like, there's an overwhelming percentage of men, like 67 percentage of men that would rather submit themselves to electric shocks than sit in deep thought for 2 or 3 minutes. And I don't know if you saw that, but but that's, that's kind of you know, what it was like, what my whole life was like. You know, you realize that, oh my God, I'm damaged goods. I hope nobody else notices. Right? And if you're able to do well in school and stay sort of high functioning, you can kind of skate by.
Matt: [00:04:05] Right? To a certain extent. Oh. And so where did it come out? It would have been 2017. I was selected to to go on the Governor General's leadership conference, and I was kind of freaked out because I knew. Right, I needed a lot of my kind of own time by myself to kind of, you know, to to keep this all together. And the Governor General's tour is you're basically spending 20 hours a day with a dozen other people, and you're getting about 3 or 4 hours sleep. I don't know if you talk to people that have gone on. It's an amazing experience. We likened it to sort of a mental boot camp where it breaks people down, like legitimately breaks them down, and you’ve got to kind of rebuild from there. And that happened to me, right? I remember saying that was the first time I said it to this bunch of strangers like, I'm sorry, I'm all over the place here. I'm sorry that I'm having these kind of reactions, but this happened to me, right? And so after having, you know, talked to my wife about it before I talked to anybody else, even, like my closest friends, it was this group of people that I'd met, you know, a week ago that found out. Right? That's how powerful that experience was and how much it hit home that. Okay, you got to deal with this, buddy. Your life's not sustainable with the status quo.
Tim: [00:05:28] And what was the reaction from the people that were there with you? Was it better or worse than what you expected?
Matt: [00:05:37] Way better. Way better. There's a lot, you know, there's tears, a lot of big hugs, right? Even from people that I didn't know. Some people who had experienced the same thing. Right. And so I was able to, you know, form these bonds just by being, you know, authentic and being vulnerable and really being scared, right? Because I didn't know, you know, when you peel that off, you know, and I remember the feeling of relief. And they say, you know, when you get rid of those kind of secrets and that shame to feel that a weight has been lifted off you. Right? And then, you know, after this, I went back and I went to see my GP and I was like, dude, I, you know, this is what's happened to me. And I told him, right? And went through and then, you know, got a therapist and kind of talked through the whole process to help, you know. So it wasn't like a dam breaking. It was kind of like a, you know, a managed dam breaking, I guess, right, to try to try to cope through it all.
Tim: [00:06:39] Right. And so what was that kind of the first time you had talked to your family and your friends around you as well?
Matt: [00:06:42] Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, at that point it was really just, you know, my wife, my doctor, my therapist, and a group of strangers that knew. Right. And, you know, I kept things bottled pretty tight, right? And so, you know, I was pretty high strung, right, for a lot of my life in terms of, you know, being pretty reactionary, I guess. And that's one of the things you think, okay, I just, you know, you are who you are. You know, I always sort of pride myself on not being not proud of myself, but thought of myself as somebody who didn't suffer fools lightly. Right? And, you know, you come to learn that that just makes you a fool yourself, right? If you're going to react to every donkey that, you know, does something irritating, then then everybody else has control over your life except for you, right? Because you're always in reactionary mode. And, you know, to be honest, I just, you know, I grew up with a family like that, and I just thought that's, well, that's just how we are. And never really, you know, because it was sort of a lot of nature and nurture issues, I guess, but never really thought, okay, well, if that's who I am, I can't do anything about it.
Matt: [00:07:52] And so it wasn't to this sort of breaking point that you think, well, geez, if I'm going to go back and kind of rebuild and I’ve got to find a different way. I don't want to just go back to being kind of the same version. Right? If I've got blind spots, if I'm doing stuff that, you know, if one of one of the, one of our mutual friends here told me this, a quote, you know, you don't want to let your storm get your kids wet, right? And that applies to not just your kids, but everybody. And so I think my storm was unintentionally getting people wet. And that, you know, I felt really bad because that's not, that's not who I am. But when you have, at least for me, the way it felt is I needed to have this sort of protective shield or this ego to keep people kind of at bay, or at least a comfortable distance, to… so they wouldn't find out my secret. Right? Wouldn't find out or, you know, that wouldn't come out or wouldn't slip out. And so, you know, people that I felt safe with or that I, that I knew I could trust, well, then it was fine. But if I felt like you were treating me like a jerk or a chump or anything like that, well, you probably got the horns, right?
Matt: [00:09:01] You probably got the aggressive side of me. And that's a side that, you know, I, you know, now I have a, you know, embarrassed about or feel ashamed about, but, you know, that's something you can fix. And I think anybody can fix that once they realize that it's a trauma response. And once you're able to kind of pull back from that and heal from it, it kind of disappears. Right? And for me, it's felt like I've been given this, you know, what's probably just being a normal person. But for somebody who's lived in the state that I've lived feels like a superpower, right? This ability to just sit back and take things and be like, well, you know, that's an issue, not an issue with me. Right? And how do I how do I respond to that instead of react to that?
Tim: [00:09:54] Yeah. We say in my family a lot, not my circus, not my monkeys. Right? Like, I have some friends who say, why aren't you reacting to that? How can you just let that happen? I'm just like, because I have zero control over it. Right? Like what… What good does it get for me to get all worked up about it when I have no control?
Matt: [00:10:09] Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny. They can't understand why your ego is not triggered by. Well, I mean, I used to get upset that my blood pressure just driving around, you know, somebody cuts you off, somebody does this, you think, oh, like. And I like, my wife would be like, dude, settle down. Right? And now I'm totally settled down. Right? It doesn't. Nothing that happens kind of on the road. You're like, well, that's just somebody, you know, in a rush or that's just somebody feeling cool by cutting you off or getting ahead of you, like, who cares, right?
Tim: [00:10:37] There's always, it's helpful for me… I don't know about you, but it's always helpful to think about. There's another story on the other side of what's going on there. Like, you don't know that person that cut you off. Maybe they're on their way because their kid, something happened at school or there's an emergency. So I just kind of, I don't… I've gotten better at not assuming what other people's intentions are. And that's really helpful in healing.
Tim: [00:11:05] Well, you use the, you know, the word assume and and on that kind of thing. I read this book, one of the most important books I've ever read in my life is The Four Agreements. And so when I kind of had to break it all down and rebuild, you know, you talk, read a lot about and talk to therapists about reparenting yourself. Right? And so you think about when you're born, I think about kids that are raised by racists, right?
Or all these things, like, you make all these agreements that you just accept as fact, right? Or as truth, and you're a child, you don't know. You don't know any of this stuff, right? And, but yet, you base your whole life on that. And a lot of people that probably have normal childhoods or normal parents or, you know, they're high functioning, they figure that out on their own, right? By the time they're 30. And some of us don't. Some of us need to kind of go through and figure out, oh my God, I got to figure myself out. And so reading The Four Agreements was amazing. And what you talked about, about the other story, in, I think it's the Fifth Agreement. It's a subsequent book after that. They talk a lot about how everybody, picture everybody in a movie theater watching their life on the big screen. Right? All by themselves, watching their life. Right? And because everything that you deal with is how you process it. And so it's your story. So if you were to go into somebody else's movie theater, you could look at that, and then, when you see your character up on the screen, you may not even recognize them because it's that person's perception of you, right? You know what I mean? And so I often I always think about that when you're kind of wondering like, why is somebody doing that, right? Or I wonder what's going on there.
Matt: [00:12:41] And it gives you a sense of well, I don't know. I don't know their story. I don't know what they're thinking about. But it's, you know, one of these things just never assume, right? Never assume anything.
Tim: [00:12:58] What are some of the main lessons you've learned since you started kind of being more open with your trauma and the things that you experienced? Because that can't be easy? Right? And I think that in the legal profession especially, there's a lot of caricatures that that you'll hear about that were, you know, we got to present as gladiators, we have to present as superheroes. And you never want to show any kind of weakness. What are some of the things that you've learned from… since being more open?
Matt: [00:12:28] You know, I guess the most fundamental piece of that is when you, when life, and you've humbled yourself, right? Either through whatever happens when you kind of reach that level of humility that you don't need the shell, right? You don't need the shield. You just you're willing to just take things as they are and be yourself. What you realize is that you have empathy for other people, right? And so when you see that other story, the person cutting you off, the person you know, screaming in the mall, all that, you look at them not with judgment, but with, you know, I wonder what's going on.
Matt: [00:14:02] You kind of feel not like pity, not like, oh, poor you, but like, like true empathy that, wow, I wish I could do something to help. Right? And it's that's what I mean. It's just amazing change of your eyes. It's like you get a brand new set of eyes to look at the world and look at how people are. Right? Because you see people as, you know, because I don't really, you know, I mean, obviously there's some psychos out there, right, that do want to hurt people. But I don't think people in general are out to hurt people. I think they’re out to survive every day. Right? And some people are on a day by day basis. You know, an hour by hour basis. Right? They're just trying to get through the day. And so, you know, having felt like that myself, I have a great deal of empathy when you see somebody who's clearly struggling. Right? And, you know, one of the four agreements is don't think, don't take things personal. Right? Don't be so full of yourself that you think somebody else's behaviour has anything to do with you.
Tim: [00:15:00] Why don't we go through those? So don't take things. I know them, but I don't ask me to recite them.
Matt: [00:15:10] No, no I won't. Well, the first one and probably the most important is be impeccable with your word. Right? So you can look at this in a couple of different ways. I approach it… I don't know the technique, but I approach it in sort of two ways. One, when you're dealing with other people, like before you say something, you know, is it true, is it kind, and is it necessary? Right? And you think of it like that. And so but the bigger part and what you take from the readings is be impeccable with your word to yourself. And that's the most important word. And you know, you can live in, in sort of heaven or hell, or purgatory, I guess, depending on how you talk to yourself and how you think about yourself. Right? And when you think about it, like so much of it, so much of everybody's misery is self-imposed by, oh, I'm an idiot. Oh, I'll never get it. Oh, I'll never do this. Rather than think, oh my God, you know what? I'm having a really rough day and I didn't react to this. Or, you know what? I, you know, something happened, and I've been able to get out of bed, right? And face the world three days in a row. Like, it depends on what the success is.
Matt: [00:16:17] But, you know, it's about doing, and that's one of them. Do your best, right? Like you're going to make mistakes, but always do your best and keep going. Right? And so it's not something that, it's not like flipping a switch. You know, for me it's been, you know, you still make mistakes, right? You still get, like, there's still some people that know how to push your buttons, right? Especially if you have kids, you know, like, oh, my God, are they you know. Or if you're married, you know, you know, people can talk you up and it's not it's not meant to be. But then you're like, but that's the great test, right? And that's the thing that oh my god. And I'll finish The Four Agreements. So the first one is be impeccable with your word. Second is don't take things personal. Right? Everybody's behaviour, it says way more about them than it does about you. Right? I absolutely agree with that one. And I love this. There's a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think he's an American philosopher. Says people's opinion of the world are… is a confession of their character. And so when you think about that, like it's, you know, nobody wants to admit it, but I think it's true. Right? It's pretty true. The third one is never assume right? Don't put the A-S-S in assume, right?
Matt: [00:17:27] Because you don't. Right? Again, that's the confession of your character. If you assume somebody is doing something wrong or out to get you. That kind of says more about you and how you see the world. And then the fourth one is do your best. Right? You're going to make mistakes. You're going to get triggered. But be kind to yourself as you're evolving and unlearning unhealthy past practices.
Tim: [00:17:51] When you were talking about upbringings or, I don't know that there's such a thing exists, I just think it's very much on a sliding scale. So when you're talking about kind of being honest with yourself and not taking things too hard, I think everybody kind of has to, to learn that to varying degrees. Because we're all hard on ourselves for whatever programing we have from our childhood.
Matt: [00:18:16]I guess when I say it like that, I'm talking about, you know, a lot of unhealed people, right, have… were raised by unhealed parents, right? You're, you know, when you think about the generational passing down of these sort of bad agreements, right? And so when I look back, I think I remember being back in high school. My God, I couldn't stand my parents, right? And I couldn't wait to go away to university just to get away from them. And I looked at other people and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to the movies with my dad. I'm like, what? It all seems so foreign to me that you would have any kind of relationship. So you think about folks that had a normal, healthy relationship with their parents because their parents were normal, healthy adults, right? Like what a leg up that is. So I guess that's what I mean by it. By a normal like maybe healthy is the right word or a, you know, a safe, when you think about, you know, you know, and what we've tried to change for our own son is to be a safe harbour for him. Right? Knowing that the kids are struggling and trying not to be judgmental or see your child as a reflection of how well you've been a parent. Right?
Tim: [00:19:32] Yeah, that's definitely a hard one. Right? And I think everybody struggles with that a little bit that you, you know, it's always like I keep thinking of, you know, not to go too far off a tangent, but parenting is a little bit like, you know, you're watching them on a road and you just your job isn't to show how they drive. It's just to put the guardrails in place. Right? They're going to hit them sometimes, and they're going to veer off to one side or the other. But, you know, that's certainly hard not to let yourself put too much stock into what they reflect on you and not be judgmental on that.
Matt: [00:20:08] Yeah. I mean, go to a hockey rink, right? Go and listen to, you know, some parents at a hockey rink because you want to get a… or anything, right? Probably a dance recital. Whatever. Right? And you'll see the parents that are living their lives through their child. Right and how harmful that is. So.
Tim: [00:20:29] So tell me a little bit about how have your experiences shaped your approach to leadership and negotiation and empathy within the legal and labour relations world?
Matt: [00:20:42] Well, that's a good question. You know, having done management side labour law and switch over to union side labour law really felt good. Right? It felt good for the soul because you're not looking to, you know, maximize profits or, you know, enable layoffs or do this other thing. You're trying to represent people, right? And human beings. And I think one of the biggest faults, I guess, you know, when you look at employers is you’ve got to remember that unions are member driven, right? And members are human beings, and a lot of employers treat their employees as widgets, right? Or the 1% malingerers. And it's not true, right? Everybody who says is sitting in their own movie theater, watching their own movie, trying to survive the day and being a good employer, right? Having some empathy, recognizing that, you know, it's not… you’ve got to have policies, you’ve got to have all this stuff. But when you talk about how do you deal with human or human relations, you know, HR, like they can do a lot better, right? And so I think from our perspective, representing union union members, we try to incorporate that language into collective agreements and help employers see the benefit of treating people properly. Right? One one example is that in some of our latest collective agreements, we've looked to adopt the CSA standards for psychologically healthy and safe workplaces, have that language incorporated in there. So it's not just, you know, take, you know, taking your best steps to, you know, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act that it goes one step further. Right? So that if you have a upper management who's a bully, well, recognize it's beyond just sort of a respectful workplace issue. It's making your workplace psychologically unsafe. Right? And so creating this sort of culture where people feel okay to go into somebody's office and say, look, I'm struggling, right? Or like, you see somebody that calls in sick or has a flat tire or a sick animal a couple of days in a row and you're wondering like, okay, I bet you know, they're a malingerer. They don't want to go to work. Well, no, they probably have depression, right? They're probably suffering from something. So instead of treating them like they're a bad person, treat them like a human being who's suffering and offer them help with empathy. Right? And so, that's when you kind of go through that and you think, I'm blessed to where I work at a nurses union with a board of directors who are all nurses. Right? And so they fundamentally understand a lot of this stuff that we're talking about. And so I remember when I kind of went through all this, I was working. Right? And so, you know, dealing with all the workplace stresses and I had no problems going to my employer and saying, look, this is what happened to me. I'm probably all over the place emotionally right now. And so I need a little bit of slack. And, you know, I get a hug. I got literally, you know, a hug from the board of directors and always have felt safe in being able to deal with this sort of thing. And so, you know, as an employer which, you know, you're both a sort of a labour leader, but we also employ unionized staff here. And so I want to create that safe space for them.
Tim: [00:24:10] And have you noticed, like you said, you were working at your current job when you kind of went through this transformation. First of all, did you see the changes? Like, did you start to see things differently at your work? And then second of all, what was kind of the feedback that you were getting from others? Did other people see those changes as well?
Matt: [00:24:32] Yes, yes, I kind of look, it's almost like an Old Matt, New Matt type of scenario. Right? You know, and I'm sure some of the nurses that are really good at sussing stuff out probably knew I had anxiety before I did right, or knew that I was dealing with this stuff before I did. They, they're just really intuitive, right? You know, they know they can look by the colour of your eyes or the tone of your skin. Right? Whether there's something up. And so, you know, when I started taking medication, when I started doing all this work on myself, yeah, a lot of the rough edges came off, right? But the biggest flip was recognizing that, you know, there shouldn't be a difference between Executive Director Matt and Matt who walks the dog, walks the golden retriever at the end of the day, or dad or husband Matt, right? They can all be the same version of me. And so figuring that out, like I noticed when, when I first did… you ever done those true colours or personality dimensions type things like Myers-Briggs? Any of those?
Tim: [00:25:38] So I have the blocks. What's that called? The…
Matt: [00:25:42] Insights, maybe.
Tim: [00:25:43] Insights. Thank you. Yes, I've done the insights. So by the way, I am very red. Very red on the top. Yep. The feeling part is not is lacking, I guess.
Matt: [00:25:54] So. So what's interesting is I was, I think I was always a strong blue. Right. And they're all the colours. Sometimes the colours are different depending on what test it is.
Tim: [00:26:04] Analytical. Yeah.
Matt: [00:26:05] And but, then you know next came probably red. Right? And so but I realized that I'd answered and done those evaluations in the mindset of you’ve got to be the strong sort of authoritarian executive director mode, right? And here's how I would treat my staff thinking that that's, you know, there's that me and then there's home me. And so what I've realized is when you do them over the course of a decade, I've seen a big shift right in the green, the empathy. All of that is just kind of replaced. Right? The, you know, the, you’ve got to follow the rules. You’ve got to be this. It's black and white. And it's been really cool to see that kind of evolution just in the way that you naturally answer those questions. Right? And so I hope the, you know, I hope our team here has seen that. You know, I know I approach each of them much different in terms of, you know, them having issues and in terms of the level of, you know, patience. I guess that I didn't have, that now just seems more, it just comes more natural to say, you know, somebody comes into your office. You think they're struggling. Before, if I was in the middle of writing an email or whatever, I'd be like, ah, you know, can you stop bothering me in the middle of doing this. Now, it's okay. I can put my, I can close my screen and close the door. Let's talk about this. Right? Because how they're feeling and how they're doing is more important to the overall organization than me writing that email, you know, in a certain time. Right? It just is. And that's how you see, at least that's how I view servant leadership. Right? And it's a matter of being the person that clears roadblocks out of your team's way, who enables them to be successful. Right And you see somebody that's good at things. Well, you don't need to overload them with work. You try to give them more responsibility so they can truly, truly flourish, right? Give them the education, give them the things they need, because really, to me, that's the… that is the definition of leadership, I think.
Tim: [00:28:15] So, without kind of going into specifics here, what kind of traits have you seen in the legal profession that kind of mimic some of the things that you kind of struggled with before you had this, as you said, this change to new Matt. What are some of the problems that you've seen in our profession? You know, I know, how much time do we have, right? Like, it's no wonder we've got some difficulties.
Matt: [00:28:45] Yeah. So my view of this has grown a lot in the last couple of years. Right? And for the better. When I look at it now, one of the things that you recognize or have recognized is that so many people, right, you're like, why is that person being a jerk to me? Why are they kind of like raising their voice? Or why is this person doing this? Or why is this person doing that? A lot of people are not able to engage kind of as their authentic self because they're in a trauma response, right? Fight, flight, freeze. Fawn and fame. The last two I just came to learn last year or so. And so pick one. Right? Just pick one. And a lot of times it's fight, right in the legal profession. You know, I’ve got stories, and so people can't be the sort of vulnerable or engaged self, you know, in truly problem-solving mode if they're if they're triggered, right, or if they're in a trauma response. Right? And so I think where you see like a lot would be fight where counsel opposite or even a colleague might be super aggressive when they're stressed out.
Matt: [00:29:57] But you also see how many people you know, you see where a lawyer may not get back to opposing counsel or get back to their own client. Right? And you wonder, why are they frozen? Right? Are they paralyzed with, you know, procrastination or whatever it is? You know, it's not because they're a lazy person. It's got nothing to do with that. It has to do with them, you know, working through stuff. So those are what I see. And so when you look around and you look back, you know, that's kind of what I see. And so I think, you know, if I were, if I were the version of me now entering private practice, I probably would have lasted a lot longer, I guess, or got more out of it. Right? And enjoyed it more. But the version of me that I was then, it was just, it wasn't fun. Wasn't fun at all.
Tim: [00:30:55] Do you think that other lawyers, for example, that you know of, have made similar choices? Or do you know of any specific ones that have, you know, without, obviously not naming names, but that have made specific choices to practice differently? So like one thing that you said to me that really, really resonated is, you know, the Matt that's walking the dog and the Matt that is at work and it's one and the same. Right? And so it's always so hard, I find in our profession, you have to be very serious, of course. And there's a time for those kinds of things. But then also, you know, being serious all the time does not necessarily a reflection of how busy you are or how hard you work. Right? Like, you can still walk around and be happy and smile and do all the other things that you do. But I think for a while there's almost this perception, at least for me, that it kind of had to be hard, right? Like if I wasn't, if I wasn't being, if I wasn't kind of walking around with a chip on my shoulder and it wasn't hard then, then I'm not really doing it right.
Matt: [00:32:02] That's so dysfunctional, though, right? It's dysfunctional. And, you know, to me, where does it come from? It comes from the top, right? Like a law firm’s no different than any other organization where leadership starts at the top. Right? And so you think of, you know, what are the expression, like a fish rots from the head first, right. And it's true. Right? If you have corner office tyrants who set the stage with, you know, bullying, with demeaning behaviour, with yelling, with all the stuff that's going to set the culture for a firm. If you've got your top dogs at any firm that are, are chill, right, and that are, you know, they're serious about business, but they're also serious about helping people grow, right? And I'm… John Townsend, I want to mention John, who who's a lawyer that I worked with and a mentor. My God, that guy's got a halo, right, in my eyes as being somebody who dealt with, you know, he never let his storm get anybody else wet, right, when it came to working with juniors. And so, you know, I can remember working on briefs with him and I'd write something and I'd be like, oh, man, did I ever nail this one.
Matt: [00:33:18] And I'd come back and Jesus, that thing was just red. It looked like somebody took a red paintbrush to it and he came in. He goes on, come on in Matt, let me let me talk you through this. He goes, first of all, you know these… this is me signing it. So I've got to be comfortable with the words. Right? Like this is too sharp. We would never say it like this, or this. We're not going to say it like this. And he would cut that thing down, but he did it in a way that was instructive, right? It wasn't this is garbage. I'm going to throw it in the garbage can. You're working all weekend to do it again. He would sit there, work with you and teach you how to do it. Right? Right? And so if you have firms and I do believe they're out there, right. Or there are lawyers out there that were like John that truly want to pass on their knowledge like they're this sort of sage, you know, Obi-Wan, right? And that's how they're built, right? And so, you know, the world could use more John Townsends. So that's, I guess, what I'll say on that matter.
Tim: [00:34:16] Yeah. It's either it's… that's the good example. And the bad example on it is either, you know, the nastiness of it and this is garbage, or you just don't ever hear anything about it again. And that's the, that's, to me, that's the worst kiss of death because then you're not you're not building people up anymore and saying, here's where you need to to move on this. And I love that. I love the discussion of, well, here's why this word is too sharp, right? Because out of context, probably nothing wrong with that word. But in context, when you look at the bigger picture of how you're trying to convey an argument and only a only the person who's known the file for years or knows the facts intimately could guide somebody on those facts, and it takes somebody like that to sit down and and kind of go over it with with the person.
Matt: [00:35:06] Yeah, yeah. It’s patience. Right? How many lawyers have patience. Right? Like you said to put their email aside. Come on in there, dummy, I'm going to talk you through this and I'm going to do it in words you'll understand. Right? Yeah. No, I mean, like I said, that guy has a halo in my eyes, so.
Tim: [00:35:27] Yeah. Well, rest in peace for certain. And are there others that you see now, like, do you see people consciously making a change to be better in the profession? I mean, that's certainly something that
Matt: [00:35:39] Well, I gotta. Right. And so, you know, I escaped and so I don't know. I’ve run into lawyers and, you know, seeing them work and for, you know, the government, and there's been some really great people that you can tell just have, they’re just healed individuals, right? They don't have an ego. They're just themselves. And, you know, yeah, they can say, look, no, I can't do this right? Or look, I've got to advance this case. You know, I know we're going to, we're gonna have to agree to disagree, right? Rather than, you know, clearly you're an idiot. Because you're not agreeing with me. Right? And that's, you know, that's.
Tim: [00:36:20] That's always a hard... That's definitely a hard one that I have is when someone takes it really personal, right? Like, you know, you kind of want to put a big flashing red sign to say, listen, I have an argument to make here. You don't even know whether I agree with this argument necessarily or not, but I zealously have to forward that argument. And so don't take it personally. Like, you know, us arguing and calling each other stupid is not going to change the fact that my client is this way and I have to make an argument.
Matt: [00:36:50] No, look, I agree, and I think we've all been guilty of that at some point. And I guess that's the thing when I look back, I probably was guilty of that more than I should have. Right? And when you think about… you get emotional. Right? And I guess that's the thing of being able to take that emotion out and just be, yeah, look, here's what it is. Right? And you don't need to put on a show for anybody.
Tim: [00:37:14] I've gotten infinitely better, over the past several years in, something will happen and somebody will ask me a question and I'll say, give me some time. I want to think about it.
Matt: [00:37:25] Oh, yeah.
Tim: [00:37:25] Yeah, yeah. Right? Because I… really something might irritate me right at that moment, but I don't want to react to it. And so I kind of internally tell myself, okay, don't react right now. Just give me a little bit of time and then oftentimes I'll come back. And my first reaction was not the right one. That was, you know, yeah, it takes a lot doesn't it?
Matt: [00:37:45] Yeah. That's but I mean, that's maturity right. That's wisdom. Right? It's all those things that, you know if you're functioning, right, if you're surviving, right, if you're in a trauma response all the time, like if life is so stressful, you're constantly triggered, you can't get there, right? It's virtually impossible to kind of slow things down, to respond and not react. Right? And that's, to me, I mean, that's the you know, that's the one of the biggest things that that I've been able to come around to.
Tim: [00:38:22] So one kind of a last question here is if you could change one thing in the legal profession related to mental health, what would it be?
Matt: [00:38:34] Well, you… I guess, I don't know if we'd need actual like, you know, regulation in that sense. Right? Every law firm is kind of their own little, little fiefdom. Their own little kingdom. Right? Run the way that it needs to be run. But I often wondered, like, is there an avenue to have like a provincial ombudsman, right? Or kind of like, not necessarily a whistleblower, but this kind of thing, who's specially trained and mandated to address the power imbalance, right, between, you know, junior lawyers who are, you know, they, you know, I think, you got a family to support. This is your job, right? And these sort of corner office Patrick Bateman's that, you know, you know, are the puppeteer, you know. Do this, do that. They literally have, they control somebody's fate. Right? And so would there be sort of an independent body that could manage that. Right? And so you take the decision making out of the partner's hands. Right? So you think about the partnership. Hey, that corner office tyrant makes us a lot of money guys, right? We can't afford to piss them off. Right? And so what does this one kid's mental health mean to us? Right? Look, he's costing us money, or she's costing money. Whatever. And so if there's an independent way to to deal with that, I think would be the biggest thing.
Tim: [00:40:09] I actually think that I don't want to misspeak on this, but there is an idea right now, through the Law Society where they have a wellness committee and there is an idea of an ombudsman, and it's I think it's either coming out or will, you know, has come out or will come out, in a report that, and I heard that, and it was, it was basically this committee struck after the Sherbrooke Report to look at ways to improve the legal profession. And that was one of the ideas. And I wonder how… what the scope of it is. But that's a really good idea. I've often thought that because there's, there's issues that come up in our profession that don't rise to the law society level, but they certainly are hard to deal with between one lawyer to another as a power imbalance.
Matt: [00:40:56] Yeah, that's, it's, and it's a huge power imbalance. Right? And you think about, well, you know, how many lawyers file wrongful dismissal lawsuits against law firms. Really? Nobody. Right? Because they're worried about, you know, that's career suicide. That no firm… You're going to be toxic to any firm. But how many lawyers have been, you know, phased out of there, right? In the wrong way. And so, yeah, I just think something that had some teeth to be able to make sure that, you know, junior lawyers are being treated the way that the human beings should be treated.
Tim: [00:41:34] Anything else that you can think of?
Matt: [00:41:36] Well, no, I mean, leadership training for all partners, right? Or any kind of decision making body. I mean, you know, or personality tests. Hey, guess what? If you score high in the psychopathy test, maybe you shouldn't be dealing with people, right? You know, I don't know. I think it'll change. Right? When you look at, you know, my son, 17, and he wouldn't put up with, and you know, stuff that I put up with. Right? They just… the generation's different. And it's like, you know what? Yeah. Look, I want to have a well-paying job. I want to do this. But you’ve got to treat me right. You have to treat me with respect or I'm gone.
Tim: [00:42:15] Yeah, I think that's… And I actually think that is one thing that we're seeing in the profession now is that a lot of younger lawyers, you know, just aren't putting up with it anymore. They'll go, there's so many options. Right? Like it's definitely an employee’s market. They can go anywhere and do just about whatever. So, a lot of people are just saying we're not going to do that anymore. You know, it's not the fancy thing anymore to go somewhere and grind out 80 hours a week in a back office with zero direction whatsoever.
Matt: [00:42:52] Yeah, yeah.
Tim: [00:42:53] Well, I thank you, Matt, for taking the time to meet with me on this episode. I really appreciate it. And thanks for being authentic and telling your story, because I think that's where this conversation starts, is for all lawyers and people in general. When you're open about your circumstances, I think it makes it much easier for other people to open up. So I don't take that lightly. It's… I think it is a powerful story.
Matt: [00:43:21] Well. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for making it, being easy to talk to. Appreciate it.