Thursday evening, Councillor Piper and I participated in a careers forum discussion with the Pre-Law Society at the University of Guelph. I assumed that the discussion would focus on my work on Council or perhaps my business and construction backgrounds.
We provided brief introductions followed by informal networking. As I spoke with the students, time and time again I was asked where I studied law and which law I studied. I explained that in my role as Councillor, we deal with many legal professions like planning law, environmental law, litigation, human resource, etc., but that I was not a lawyer.
It wasn’t till near the end of the night till I realized that perhaps there was a misunderstanding. The organizers were expecting Counselors from the City of Guelph, not lowly Councillors.
This may explain one young ladies frustration. She kept asking me about my legal background and I kept saying that I had none. Continuing to press for why I was even there she asked what accreditation did I graduate with. The conversation was finally complete when I told her that I had no degree and had in fact, dropped out of high school.
Here is their thank you note. Not sure if I’ll get an invite next year. ian
On behalf of Pre-Law Society, I wanted to thank you for attending our event last night, and hope that you had a nice evening. Many students expressed that they had enjoyed themselves tremendously, and that is in large part due to your presence.
We are very appreciative and grateful that you took time out of your busy schedule to meet all of us. Hopefully, we can see you at more of our events in the future!
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Clearly a lack of communication here. Better bring in some outside consultants to clarify the mission statement of our optional discussion forums.
ha ha ha that’s funny! Only ones to blame are the organizers of the event for either not knowing the fact or for not informing well their audience.
LOL. I think you are right Ian, I did not make the connection until just now. Counselor vs. councillor. That being said, it was an enthusiastic group of students and I hope some of them learned more about public sector law. I hope next year they don’t invite any Carden Street “solicitors”.