Canada, Money

The View From Up North: Toronto Lawyer Wins The Lottery!

The lawyer has apparently taken a one-year sabbatical from her litigation job. We guess the firm doesn't think she'll be back -- it already pulled her bio from its website.

By  
on

I got a heads up from a lawyer at Norton Rose in Toronto who said a second year associate, Andrea Campbell, recently won Lotto 6/49, along with her boyfriend.

$35,164,526.30.

Let it soak in…

For the benefit of any American readers (who think that amount looks chumpy compared to the gaudy Powerball jackpots), there is no 40% reduction for a lump sum payout and there is no Canadian tax on jackpot winnings. Andrea and her boyfriend get to keep the whole freakin’ amount!

Andrea has apparently taken a one-year sabbatical from her litigation job. I guess N-Rose doesn’t think she’ll be back because her profile has been pulled from its website.

Pretty…safe…bet.

My first thought after hearing this big news was, will God let more than one Canadian lawyer win the big one or has Andrea used up all the “lawyer luck” by winning this jackpot? Selfish, I know. Instead of congratulating her, I’m worried about myself.

Sponsored

My second thought was, what would I do with that kind of money, anyway, and would it really make me happy? I think a lot of people believe winning the lottery will change their lives for the better. But, will it? What’s going on in your life that tons of money will make better? The most obvious thing—you’ll quit practicing law. But, will your marital troubles disappear because of money? Will your kids suddenly turn into angels? Will a trip to Europe (and Australia and Tokyo and Bermuda) cure what ails you?

In another life, I had a conversation with a former basketball player that is currently an NBA head coach. I won’t name him, but he coaches an L.A. team that was once owned by a racist. For the sake of anonymity we’ll call him Physician Creek.

Anyway, Physician made a pretty good living as an NBA player, apparently somewhere around $8 million for his career, which was a lot of money back in the 80s. Before Physician struck it rich for a second time as an NBA coach, I remember him saying he bought lottery tickets. I was dumbfounded by that statement. This was shortly after he told me his wife had purchased him a Mercedes coupe for his birthday, which meant money wasn’t an issue in the Creek household. Why, then, was he buying lottery tickets? What more did a wealthy, ex-NBA player need?

Maybe the answer is, no matter where we are in life, rich or poor, lawyer or sports hero, we always want more. Our culture is never satisfied with the status quo. The guy that pours your coffee in the morning would love to make what a junior lawyer makes. Junior lawyers want to make partner money. Service partners look at what rainmakers earn with envy. Rainmakers look at their clients and can’t believe some of these “idiots” are drowning in cash when they, the real brains, have to scrape by on a couple million per year.

Cash, coin, dough, bling will cure all our blights, right? Or possibly it won’t. Maybe we should instead concentrate on how to make our lives better with what we have. Could that be the path to true bliss, focusing on the positives in our lives and trying to maximize them instead of fretting over what we don’t have?

Sponsored

Anyway, congratulations to Andrea. I hope you have a wonderful, fulfilling life. And, yes, I am jealous because as much as I believe an ocean of money won’t necessarily make me happy, I’d still love to give it a try.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a rewarding week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Keybridge Legal Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm that places lawyers in law firms and in-house roles throughout North America. You can contact Steve at [email protected]. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@IMRecruitR), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).

Topics

, , , , , , , ,