Precedent marks its 10th anniversary

Melissa Kluger

There was probably some, or a lot of, scepticism out there when Melissa Kluger launched Precedent magazine, the Toronto-based lifestyle magazine for lawyers. 

Well, it is about the celebrate its 10th anniversary, which is no mean feat. For its fall anniversary issue, senior editor Daniel Fish sat down with Kluger to talk about the magazine's origins. She was working in the law, but has always wanted to be a journalist.

"During those first few years as a lawyer, I started to read the existing crop of legal magazines. None of them spoke to me. On every cover there was an old white man. And, perhaps more importantly, there was nothing in them about how to be a young professional. Something was missing. So I thought, Damn it, I have to start a magazine."

She launched a blog and quit her job as a lawyer and spent the next year planning ( working part-time on doc-review contracts for lawyers to pay the rent.) The magazine started out strong, but almost immediately met several major obstacles: a recession, a competing magazine from Canadian Lawyer, and the move of traditional advertisers to digital. She overcame them all.

DF: "One big thing that has changed at Precedent [over the 10 years] is its mandate. When I joined the magazine, four years ago, this was no longer a magazine exclusively for young lawyers. Why did you make that change?" 

MK: "I worried that once lawyers made partner, they’d put down the magazine and say, ‘That’s it! I’m done with Precedent.’ I didn’t want that to happen. I still want the magazine to skew young. It should promote emerging lawyers who wouldn’t have a place in other magazines, but the stories should appeal to everyone."

Precedent magazine cover story explores whatever happened to Michael Bryant

In what is something of a departure (in length, rather than its serious intent) the current (Winter) issue of Precedent magazine carries an excellent cover story by senior editor Daniel Fish about Michael Bryant. The coverline asks the apt question: Whatever happened to Michael Bryant? The former attorney general of Ontario who was caught up in a controversial prosecution after a confrontation with a cyclist on Bloor Street in Toronto, a confrontation that turned into a tragedy. And after a considerable and complicated aftermath how he is in the process of rebuilding his life built on empathy for the less fortunate, spending long hours as duty counsel in bail court in Brampton.

I asked him if there is anything he now finds toxic about the justice system that didn’t bother him as attorney general. “Start with this: everyone I represent today is in cuffs. And they’re innocent. That’s wrong.” To cuff everyone, he says, strips them of their presumption of innocence. “And if you treat people like they’re guilty, they start to believe they’re guilty. That’s when they start thinking, Well, you know what, I’m sitting in cuffs. I’m in jail. I must have done something wrong. Then they plead guilty.”

The personal transformation of Bryant into a criminal lawyer for an underclass who badly need one, ..well, you can read about it yourself online. And you'll know, at least in part, the answer to the cover question.