Douglas Barrett is a partner at the Toronto law firm

of McMillan Binch and a member of the firm’s KNOWlaw Group.

This is the 200th Binchmarks column. Wow.

The first was published on Sept. 7, 1987, a little over 16 years ago. I wrote that one too. It was called ‘Bank funding accessed via ‘ingenious’ loan agreements.’ The most recent Binchmarks, published Nov. 24, was written by Sandra Richmond. It was called ‘Smoothing the waters of bridge financing.’ Plus ca change …

Incredibly, there have been 49 different authors for the columns. The six principal members of the McMillan Binch KNOWlaw Group over the years (myself, Diana Cafazzo, Sandra Richmond, Simon Chester, David Kent and Ted Kelterborn) wrote about half of them.

The rest were penned by a stellar group of individuals. Some remain with the firm (Mary-Ann Haney and Bruce McWilliam among others). Some went on to greater glory with other firms or companies (Ron Hay is partnered with Stephen Stohn, Carol Chestnut is with Heenan Blaikie, Alex Du went to Bell ExpressVu, John LeBlanc went to the Royal Bank, Cynthia Rathwell is at Star Choice and Anne Molloy is now a judge). One (Hatty Reisman) got married and started a family with me – in addition to being general counsel to both Atlantis Communications and Nelvana Ltd. Numerous summer and articling students also contributed to Binchmarks – special thanks are due to them.

The columns, many of which are available on the Playback website (www.playbackmag.com) have covered every possible legal issue in the entertainment industries, from tax shelters to television violence, from CRTC policies to satellite wars and piracy.

It all started on a warm spring day in 1987 at MIP-TV in Cannes. Mark Smyka, the founding editor of Playback, was standing in the Ontario booth at the Palais de Festivals looking for a lunch date. He and I went to a cafe and began to talk about the idea of a continuing column focussing on legal issues confronted by the entertainment industry in Canada.

He explained to me that he had not found these to be very successful in the past. ‘Lawyers have at least three major challenges to overcome in becoming successful columnists.’

Lawyers can’t write right

‘First,’ he said, ‘lawyers don’t know how to write in a journalistic style. Journalists put the conclusion of the story at the top and fill in the details below. Lawyers go through a pile of analysis before coming to any conclusion, if they ever come to any conclusion at all.’

As well, he told me that lawyers have an almost impossible time writing in a readable journalistic style. It’s not because they are not literate. It’s a result of the legal thinking and analysis skills developed during their training.

Topics are too big for

short articles

The second problem is that lawyers can’t reduce their topic to a size that can be covered briefly and succinctly. ‘They begin something sizeable in scope and then go on and on until they have exhausted what they know or can find out on the subject. The result takes up a lot of space, reads badly and informs no one.’

Columnists run out of steam

This is a corollary of the topic problem. Mark’s experience was that lawyers try to put too much information in each article and soon run out of suitable topics on which to write. As a result, the column soon grinds to a halt.

The Big Fix

As a solution to these problems, Mark proposed a form of ‘Column Writing School’ for the contributing McMillan Binch lawyers. Each would write a couple of practice columns, and Mark would come in to tear them apart.

It was quite an experience. He taught us the value of reducing topics to a scope that can be properly covered in column length, and this gave us many more topics to write about. He reorganized our columns to make them fit a journalistic format. And he showed us how to write in a more punchy, readable style.

Another of Mark’s suggestions has had equally important impact. He told us we had to have a good internal editor to ensure that the columns consistently kept up with the style and substance standards he had set for us. For many years that editor has been Diana Cafazzo, with Sandra Richmond filling in during Diana’s maternity leave. Thanks are due to both for their quality control efforts.

Suffice to say we all learned a ton under Mark’s capable tutelage. That upfront homework has produced tremendous results. Mark was only the first of a group of incredibly talented and committed editors who have worked closely with the McBinchers of the years. They include Susan Tolusso, Mary Maddever, Alison Vale, Samantha Yaffe and Peter Vamos.

For our part at McBinch, the relationship with Playback has definitely been rich and rewarding. And thanks to Mark Smyka and his successors, we have lots left to say.

So… here’s to another 200.

-www.mcmillanbinch.com