Law360 Canada (October 19, 2026, 8:31 AM EDT) --
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| Heidi J. T. Exner |
For lawyers, a photograph with a political figure can do two jobs. It can reassure a prospective client that a lawyer understands where decisions get made. It can also invite a question: Whose side is this firm on?
This tension is hardly new to the legal profession.
In Alberta, law and politics in fact helped to build the province together. But today’s referendum gives this old professional calculation unusually sharp edges. Among 10 questions, Albertans will choose between remaining in Canada and asking the government to begin a constitutional process toward a subsequent separation referendum. The immediate result on that question is expressly non-binding, but the reputational consequences of taking sides need not be.
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The issue is not whether political experience has value. Rather, it is whether firms can capture that value without allowing political identity to become their overriding public credential.
A relationship older than the province
Alberta’s legal-political interconnectedness predates its provincial boundaries. James Lougheed established himself in Calgary’s legal and commercial life before becoming a leading Conservative senator. In 1897, R.B. Bennett joined his practice, which fatefully connected two men whose careers would reach deeply into national politics. Bennett would eventually become prime minister.
The relationship I just described also illustrates why this history should not be romanticized. Lougheed’s attempt to dissolve the partnership without Bennett’s agreement produced a notoriously bitter rupture in 1922. On both sides of the split, the successor practices became firms that continue to thrive today. Legal institutions endured; personal alliances did not.
This legal-political connection also crossed generations. Peter Lougheed, James’s grandson, became premier in 1971 and, after retiring from office in 1985, joined the Bennett firm as a senior partner. The historical symmetry is both amusing and striking: a premier returning to a profession intertwined with his family’s political ascent.
These are more than colourful biographies, as they establish the durable professional proposition that experience in public life could become an asset in private legal practice. Political stature signals judgment, relationships and familiarity with institutions. Clients could reasonably value those qualities without assuming that their counsel had any particular stake in a political decision. This proposition also survives across party lines.
What clients are actually buying
When Rachel Notley joined a law firm in January 2025, the firm’s announcement emphasized leadership, governance and conflict resolution. Her advertised contribution included complex complaints, investigations and organizational reviews. The offering was not simply a former premier’s contact list; it was experience managing difficult institutions under pressure.
Some legal and lobbyist firms make the relationship argument more explicitly. For example, a government-relations practice may market a multi-partisan team, connections across government and opposition and proximity to the legislature. This demonstrates how openly political knowledge and networks form part of our modern-day professional services offerings.
The legitimate value, however, lies in translation: it implies understanding how a proposal becomes a policy priority, why an institution resists change, and how legal advice interacts with public decision-making.
Prestige adds another layer. A distinguished political recruit can make a firm appear consequential before a prospective client has even thought about, let alone assessed its technical work. This is useful positioning, but it also creates exposure. The more prominently a firm markets proximity to a political identity, the harder it becomes to insist that identity is irrelevant when controversy arrives. The essential distinction here is that understanding government is expertise; implying privileged treatment is something else.
A referendum that strains the distinction
The October ballot reaches well beyond separation. It includes immigration and eligibility for public services, proposed changes to judicial appointments, Senate abolition and greater provincial constitutional autonomy. For the legal profession, these are questions about institutions and rights as well as electoral positioning.
The separation question is particularly susceptible to compressed, partisan storytelling. It does not itself take Alberta out of Canada, nor does it authorize unilateral departure. In the 1998
Secession Reference, the Supreme Court held that a clear majority on a clear question would create an obligation to negotiate, not a unilateral right to secede. Federalism, constitutionalism, minority rights and Indigenous interests properly remain part of the legal landscape.
Precision is therefore a professional contribution, not an evasion. Yet precision may be politically unrewarding. A lawyer explaining constitutional constraints can be portrayed as opposing democratic choice. A lawyer explaining the possibility of negotiations can be portrayed as endorsing separation. In a polarized debate, an explanation can acquire a partisan label its author never intended!
A pernicious effect of this polarization is that legal explanation can be mistaken for partisan advocacy. And this is exactly where and how political capital can reverse direction.
The risk travels beyond the individual
Consider a hypothetical scenario in which a partner of a law firm becomes a prominent referendum campaigner. Clients encounter the campaign through the partner’s professional biography, media appearances or firm-linked social accounts. Some may interpret the firm’s association with the campaigner as tacit endorsement of the campaign’s position.
The firm may gain admirers, sure. It may also make existing clients wonder whether their interests will receive dispassionate consideration. An employer seeking workplace advice, an Indigenous government assessing constitutional options or a business weighing investment uncertainty may ask their own unique questions, but each should have full confidence in counsel’s independent judgment.
To be clear, I am not implying an ethical breach is necessary for this variety of commercial risk to arise. Nor am I saying that disagreement with a lawyer’s politics establishes professional unfitness. Reputation and regulation operate on different thresholds, and I am speaking purely about reputation.
The Alberta Law Society’s
Code of Conduct does supply us with a handy boundary, though. A conflict exists where there is a substantial risk that representation or loyalty would be materially and adversely affected by the lawyer’s own interests or competing duties. Its commentary specifically recognizes that a lawyer’s own loyalty, interest or belief can impair representation. Political conviction is not automatically disqualifying; impaired professional judgment is the concern.
Independence is an active discipline
I do not believe the answer is to empty the profession of political conviction. I would go as far as to state the opposite, as lawyers have knowledge worth contributing to constitutional debate. The Code expressly contemplates lawyers seeking legislative or administrative change, and it requires disclosure of the interest being advanced. It also (and rightly so!) holds lawyers in public office to professional standards of conduct.
For firms, the practical task is to make roles intelligible when law and politics overlap. Firms should distinguish personal campaigning, client advocacy, government relations work and institutional statements so that overlapping roles do not obfuscate whose interests are being advanced. Conflict reviews should examine actual duties and risks, not merely party membership. Furthermore, public explanations, when provided, should distinguish settled law from contested interpretation and political preferences.
But a disclaimer cannot substitute for conduct, and actions must align with words here. A lawyer who promises independent advice must remain willing to deliver conclusions that disappoint his or her political allies.
The same discipline applies to marketing. If a firm sells political understanding, it can demonstrate that value through careful analysis. However, if what a firm is really doing is selling political proximity to imply status, it invites clients to measure its usefulness by the values and fortunes of particular people. In this event, how one may define usefulness is left to inferences, and this is where I get uncomfortable.
The photograph of the partners with political bigwigs can stay on the wall, if they must. But in my view, the more valuable credential now, and perhaps always, is independence.
Heidi J. T. Exner is an award-winning white-collar crime fighter, and she is passionate about making the world a better place. She is the founding partner of Ethical Edge Advisors, the founder and chair of the Exner Foundation, a member of JURIST.org’s advisory board, an executive at the CBA’s B.C. Branch, a member of the editorial committee at the CBA’s Alberta Branch, and she is advancing licensure to practise law in both New York State and Alberta. She welcomes you to find her on LinkedIn or check out her biography page on Ethical Edge’s website.
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