(This post is an edited extract from a talk I gave on Nov. 1, 2017, to the legal ethics seminar of the bar admission course at the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. My thanks once again to the Honourable John Joy, lately of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, an

As I write, it is May 19, feast day of the patron saint of lawyers, St. Ives, a.k.a. Yves, Yvo, Ivo, Ervoan, and Evona. He lived from 1253 to 1303, and was canonized by Pope Clement VI in 1347. Still, his fate at the hands of folk culture proves that, no matter what benefit lawyers ha