Super suit

>> The passionate law of Rick Goldman

by WAYNE HILTZ

Rick Goldman is not your typical lawyer. How many suits run a walk-in legal clinic, lobby governments and the UN, teach aspiring social workers and front a klezmer band?

Raised by secular Jewish, left-wing parents, Goldman says he was taught to "try to do something worthwhile with one's life other than make a lot of money." So far, he has done just that and more.

Rather than working for big bucks at some high-powered law firm, he turned down that lucrative career for one more personally fulfilling. "I could never imagine myself in a business suit and BMW-type setting. To me, it's like early retirement," he says.

As the staff lawyer for Project Genesis (a Côte-des-Neiges community organization), he finds it "very satisfying to actually solve some problems in a world that seems to be getting worse and worse."

Supervising about 10 law students from McGill and the Université de Montréal, Goldman has developed a legal clinic perhaps unique in Montreal: people can just walk in. Besides training future lawyers in areas barely touched in law faculties--welfare, housing, immigration--the clinic also helps people learn about the law and fight for their rights.

"You're just throwing crap against the fan if the laws in the system aren't working," Goldman says, despite managing to solve many individual cases. For the past few years, he has spent countless hours fighting regressive social legislation such as Quebec's so-called welfare reforms.

Goldman was also heavily involved in an effort by over 150 community groups and unions which led the UN's Economic and Social Commission last month to severely criticize Canada's recent social program cutbacks. And if that isn't enough, he also teaches a course called Legal Problems of the Poor to McGill social work students. Taking cases straight from Project Genesis' storefront, they start looking from Day One at "very practical questions that these social workers are going to have to answer."

Goldman's social values are also reflected in his involvement with the Bagg Street Klezmer Band, which he fronts as a clarinetist. "When we started, we thought of it largely as a mitzvah [good deed] band," he says. "About half of our gigs each year are benefits."

Consumed passionately by fighting the good fight and passing on that enthusiasm to future lawyers and social workers, Goldman feels that the tide is now turning. While governments no longer can say there's no money for social programs, he feels that "they're not going to put something back without a heck of a lot of pressure." And you can bet that he'll be on the frontlines to make sure that happens.