In early 2022, the Mayor of New Westminster announced he would not be running for re-election. At the time, I had been planning on running for city council as a way to continue my community service. However, after a long walk in the rain with my spouse, I decided to seek the office of Mayor instead. I’m not the first lawyer to seek elected office, and I won’t be the last. This brief article will share some of the things I learned on the campaign trail, comparing to life as a lawyer.

Like trial work, the key to success is preparation. Prepare for media interviews, prepare for all-candidates meetings, prepare for campaign videos, prepare scripts for phone banking, prepare scripts for door knocking. For media interviews, we usually know the general topic of the interview in advance and can prepare somewhat responsive messages. Similarly, we may be given the topics/questions for all candidates meetings in advance; and, even if we’re not, we can prepare messages for the specific community hosting the all-candidates meetings. Although most campaigning is done outside of office hours, the reality is a lot of preparation happens during office hours, and a lot of media interviews happen in office hours.

Unlike examinations for discovery, you don’t have to answer the question you were asked! Litigators know to prepare their witnesses to listen carefully to the question asked and answer that question (and that question only). We are also trained to listen to witnesses’ answers, and to press the question if the witness evades the question. Politicians are encouraged to segue the question to their message. We are told the more we stick to our core message, the more likely that message will get reported. The only way we can control what’s reported is controlling what we say.

Part of staying on message does include saying what you mean and meaning what you say. It can be very tempting to tell a voter what they want to hear in an effort to secure their vote; but if one goes “off message” for the sake of securing that one vote, one may find they end up contradicting themselves and losing votes as a result.

Social media is not a kind or truthful place. One could describe it as a seething cesspool of anger, hatred, and misinformation. Actually, I have. As a profession we strive to a goal of civility: strive mightily but eat and drink as friends and bemoan the lack of civility. Our professional code of conduct tells us our ethical duties as lawyers apply when we are seeking or serving public office. However, not all politicians are lawyers, and there is no professional code of conduct for politicians. There are no rules of civility. It is a street fight. People will make things up about you. There is no sense of “attack problems, not people.” One needs a thick skin.

Perhaps the biggest difference between being a political candidate and being a lawyer is political candidates are not the captains of the team. As lawyers, we work in a team and we rely on all our teammates to do their jobs well. However, we’re often the ones making the strategic decisions and advising the client. As a candidate, even as a party leader (and, as the mayoral candidate, I was essentially the leader of our electoral coalition), I wasn’t the captain of the team. We had a campaign manager who had a volunteer team that collectively made strategic campaign decisions. We set the policy (after consultation with constituents), but the campaign manager set the strategic direction for the campaign.

Of lesser importance:

• I’m much more camera aware, and much more able to flash a camera-friendly smile than I’ve ever been.
• I get recognized a lot more in public generally than I ever have.