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Johann Kwan (2010)<\/h3>\nJohann Kwan (2010)<\/h3>\nUpdated Feb 9 2024<\/p>\n
Lawyer, Johann Kwan Law<\/strong><\/p>\n 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<\/em>, 2020 SCC 16. I\u2019ve since worn a few other hats, culminating in building my own practice catering mostly to small business clients that conduct business online. The jury\u2019s still out on the success of that venture, but it makes me happy.<\/p>\n I have to confess to the fact that I was a terrible<\/em> 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\u2013and found myself scrabbling for a deeper understanding of \u201cLife, the Universe and Everything\u201d 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<\/em>, and wanted the answers to \u201cLife, the Universe, and Everything\u201d 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<\/em>. Mea maxima culpa<\/em>.<\/p>\n But (and this is the important part) somehow, due to the quality of the professors and their vast patience (of which I\u2019m 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<\/em> anything to me for some time. In my hurry, it hadn\u2019t gelled into a coherent whole in my head, but all of it stuck. In other words, the College armed<\/em> me with the knowledge I was looking for, and I didn\u2019t even know it.<\/p>\n It would take a professor at Carleton\u2019s 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\u2019d stored away from Humanities, and suddenly everything started falling into place. Everything from Plato onwards built upon the last. In retrospect, if I hadn\u2019t been in such a hurry, so infuriatingly impatient<\/em>, 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<\/em> at the time\u2013but when it clicked, it slammed home.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t stress enough what that\u2019s meant for my life, both personally and professionally. It\u2019s formed the bedrock for the way I think, and it\u2019s been a boon whether I\u2019m just trying to live \u201cmy best life\u201d 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to put into words\u2013and 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\u2013so thanks for planting all that Strunk & White into my head, and my apologies for violating any style rules here.<\/p>\n Before I start gushing too effusively and start rambling\u2013onto other things the College has done for me over the years:<\/p>\n The first time I wrote one of these, I talked about how there was a genuine camaraderie in the College. There\u2019s so much truth to that, and it\u2019s only grown with time. It\u2019s been fourteen years now, and I\u2019m still friends with so many of my former classmates. Some of us, along with other friends from Carleton and friends we\u2019ve 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\u2019 cool University friend. All of us, I am certain\u2013because we will often reminisce when we get together\u2013will reflect glowingly on our time at the College.<\/p>\n