Vermont's Lawyers & Their Canadian Connection
Ethical Enlightenment in Montreal with the VT Bar Association & Vermont Law and Graduate School (and for me, too!)
January 20, 2025
The Vermont Bar Association’s Mid-Winter Thaw in Montreal is an annual educational event hosted by the VBA’s Young Lawyers Division and, in part, by Vermont Law and Graduate School. Along with its standard continuing legal education classes, this year, interestingly, the overarching themes seemed to revolve around self-reflection, self-improvement and, as might be expected in Canada, a call to focus on compassionate leadership and ethics.
This is no small event. With about 200 licensed Vermont attorneys attending, it represents roughly 10% of all lawyers statewide. What is taught and learned in Montreal each year during this conference resonates throughout the state and influences how law is practiced. I was heartened to see not one but two classes offered that focused on ethics. Plus another on Internal Family Systems Informed Emotional Intelligence that drew high praise. It seems as though introspection and developing strong internal values is becoming more normalized within the Vermont legal profession these days.
Back when I practiced law in Vermont some thirty years ago, the focus of continuing legal education classes tended to be more on the mechanics of private practice and on providing zealous advocacy within the bounds of the law. I’m happy to see things are changing. While we all want a zealous advocate in a lawyer, I find it heartening to hear more emphasis placed today on inter- and intra-personal values, self-reflection, self-awareness, awareness of others, emotional intelligence, listening skills, and ethical considerations. Perhaps this is unique to the Vermont/Canada connection and mystique, but I’m hopeful it will influence all lawyers in practice everywhere.
Case in point was the presentation titled The Call to Lead: Ethics and the Legal Profession as presented by Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Professor Margaret Olnek. Olnek not only teaches a VT Law School class on Professional Responsibility (that’s legal ethics, for the layperson), she also teaches Family Law. She’s a VT Law School graduate who has handled and litigated dozens of cases in Colorado over thirty years. She then became a certified divorce coach with a focus on helping mostly women deal with high-conflict divorces. Her deep knowledge of narcissists, large egos, greed, and those with personality disorders has prepared her well for understanding and interpreting the psychology of what it takes to lead, not to mention to teach a class on leadership to lawyers. After all, what is leadership but a set of values followed and practiced? These values are Olnek’s focus whenever she’s teaching a law school class of eager students, helping a divorce client understand how to respond to conflict, or imparting to a mom how to be the best parent to children struggling with complex and often volatile family situations.
Professor Olnek’s presentation first gave a visual nod to family and the swan that is the mascot of Vermont Law and Graduate School on her talk’s cover slide.
She then delved into the five qualities that define a leader, along with their sub-categories that include humility, courage/willingness to take a stand, and ethics.
Then, with a quote from Vince Lombardi on how leaders are made and not born, she quickly dispelled the myth that being a leader is innate. Instead, she went on to use examples of failed leaders and how they progressed “from genius to folly” due to a lack of courage and willingness to take a stand or as a result of greed and ego. Of course, politician-lawyers were the focus, starting with Watergate then exploring the likes of Andrew Cuomo and Rudy Giuliani who took center stage as failed leaders, while Mike Pence and Liz Cheney were lauded as strong leaders for their courage and ability to say “no” when undue pressure was exerted on them from above.
Professor Olnek then wrapped up her 90-minute presentation with three writing exercises, asking the seventy or so attendees to put pen to paper and write without much reflection. The exercises, each taking a few minutes, included:
“What leadership qualities do you have and what qualities do you need to work on?”
“What would you do or what would you become if all barriers were removed (i.e. financial barriers, timing barriers, required degrees, training or certifications, etc.)?” and,
Pen your own obituary.
She didn’t ask anyone to turn them in. These were all positioned up front as private and reflective exercises designed to focus upon and improve self-awareness.
I wrote quickly and surely, simply getting my thoughts on paper. I reflected afterwards on each of these topics, coming to some new understandings of myself as the person I am, yet, more importantly, the person I’d like to be. I encourage you to do the same. It might just be that whether you’re a lawyer practicing in Vermont or anywhere else, or you are from any walk of life, these exercises will help you in ways you might not expect.
This is the kind of exhilarating self awareness through education that I cherish, and that I found to be of such high value at the VBA Mid-Winter Thaw. I never would have expected a convening of lawyers to make me think about myself in ways large and small that would teach me life lessons that matter. But, here I was, in Montreal, where it seemed the Vermont to Canada connection somehow transformed what might have been an otherwise ordinary experience into a magical moment that drew me together with 200 other Vermonters around a common theme. It seems lawyers can make the world a better place by starting with themselves and doing the deep thinking and emotive reflecting that will make them better people first and foremost, then, as a result, better lawyers and leaders.
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2025, I am deeply grateful to the Vermont Bar Association, as well as Vermont Law and Graduate School—to say nothing of my appreciation for Professor Olnek and her compelling presentation on leadership that helped me realize tomorrow will be better if we all take to heart the leadership qualities we can all practice. All we have to do is dig deep and focus on those skills the good professor imparted. We’ve heard this before as you’ll see in the quote below.
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dave Celone JD’92 is Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations at Vermont Law and Graduate School. He writes from Sharon, Vermont.