Johann Kwan (2010)
Updated Feb 9 2024
Lawyer, Johann Kwan Law
Last time I wrote an alumni profile, I owned a fairly successful photography business in Toronto. That business has now been closed, as I decided to attend law school in 2015 and am now a lawyer. I was called to the bar in 2019, and my first file was an intervention before the Supreme Court of Canada in Uber Technologies v Heller, 2020 SCC 16. I’ve since worn a few other hats, culminating in building my own practice catering mostly to small business clients that conduct business online. The jury’s still out on the success of that venture, but it makes me happy.
I have to confess to the fact that I was a terrible undergraduate student. I came into the college intent on studying in a Great Books program with the wrong attitude: as a keen high school maths and science student with an Anglican upbringing, I had suffered a crisis of faith–and found myself scrabbling for a deeper understanding of “Life, the Universe and Everything” outside of the faith I was brought up in. The College was, in hindsight, the best place to give me a foundation to tackle the problem, but I was above all impatient, and wanted the answers to “Life, the Universe, and Everything” immediately. So I was often an awful, irreverent, and fickle student, and looking back I am constantly embarrassed by the person I was. To my professors, for any grief I may have caused you: Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
But (and this is the important part) somehow, due to the quality of the professors and their vast patience (of which I’m certain I am not the first student to try nor the last) everything the College imparted upon me stuck firmly. Sure enough, none of it meant anything to me for some time. In my hurry, it hadn’t gelled into a coherent whole in my head, but all of it stuck. In other words, the College armed me with the knowledge I was looking for, and I didn’t even know it.
It would take a professor at Carleton’s Political Theory department, Prof. Tom Darby, to make me see what the College had armed me with. His own teleology of political thought gave rise to my own way to structure everything I’d stored away from Humanities, and suddenly everything started falling into place. Everything from Plato onwards built upon the last. In retrospect, if I hadn’t been in such a hurry, so infuriatingly impatient, I would surely have seen it in the structure of the program itself. We were told as much, and I just was too impatient to listen at the time–but when it clicked, it slammed home.
I can’t stress enough what that’s meant for my life, both personally and professionally. It’s formed the bedrock for the way I think, and it’s been a boon whether I’m just trying to live “my best life” or drafting legalese. Of course, life experiences and other mentors have built upon that foundation, but without that foundation everything else would be a shambles.
It’s difficult to put into words–and words are the tools of my trade. On that note, the credit for whatever skill I have with words probably belongs to the college as well–so thanks for planting all that Strunk & White into my head, and my apologies for violating any style rules here.
Before I start gushing too effusively and start rambling–onto other things the College has done for me over the years:
The first time I wrote one of these, I talked about how there was a genuine camaraderie in the College. There’s so much truth to that, and it’s only grown with time. It’s been fourteen years now, and I’m still friends with so many of my former classmates. Some of us, along with other friends from Carleton and friends we’ve met along the way, still get together online weekly to play Dungeons and Dragons. A fair number of us are lawyers now, and see each other either professionally, socially, or as good friends. Many of us have children, and I have the great pleasure of playing the part of the parents’ cool University friend. All of us, I am certain–because we will often reminisce when we get together–will reflect glowingly on our time at the College.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the College’s administrators. I would pit them against anyone anywhere. I don’t just mean in a University program, I mean anywhere. I don’t say that lightly. I’ve learned in the workplace how important good administration is, and I still think back at how much Andrea did for all of us.
That’s it for this update to my alumni profile. I’ll check in again in another decade.
Johann Kwan runs his own legal practice with a focus on small business and tech, and spends his free time shooting photos, riding motorcycles, and travelling whilst working remotely.