Marina Paperny: Don’t let anyone else define you

by Maxine Fischbein

(AJNews) – The Honourable Marina Paperny KC has some empowering words for women based on her life experience as a lawyer, community volunteer and judge.

“Don’t let anybody else define you. Define yourself… and do what you want to do,” says Paperny, who also emphasizes the absolute imperative to give back and make the world a better place, values she learned at the knees of her parents and grandparents and honed within a supportive community.

“Don’t let anybody else define you. Define yourself… and do what you want to do.”

AJNews spoke to Paperny shortly after she began a new chapter in her distinguished career. Having retired from the bench after 27 years, five of them on the Alberta Court of King’s Bench and the balance on the Courts of Appeal of Alberta and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Paperny was appointed Senior Counsel by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, where she provides strategic advice to clients and colleagues.

The Honourable Marina Paperny. Photo by Trudie Lee, Harderlee Photography Inc., Calgary, courtesy Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

Paperny, who was born and raised in Calgary, can truly be described as a trailblazer.

When she started practicing law in Calgary, she recalls only one other woman Jewish colleague and maybe eight women lawyers in the entire city.

“I wish I could say that I had had mentors, because it would have been wonderful,” said Paperny. “What I did have were some really good friends, and we supported one another and recognized that we wouldn’t make it through this profession unless we held each other up.”

The support of her family and the Calgary Jewish community was formative, helping Paperny to thrive in the law.

“That’s the core of me,” says Paperny, who resumed active participation in the Calgary Jewish community after returning from Toronto.

“It’s in my DNA, in part because I had had the advantage of having leadership opportunities in Young Judaea and being a member of USY and BBYO. I don’t think there was a Jewish organization that I didn’t belong to, because I loved it.”

Paperny shared her time and talent within and beyond the Jewish community.

“People were looking for lawyers, people were looking for Jews, and people were looking for women. As it happened, I was all three… a bit of a unicorn at the time.”

“I was humbled to be able to serve the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community in a host of different volunteer positions….They prepared me to assume this role as a judge because I came to understand the complexities of the world through those organizations,” Paperny told AJNews.

Paperny served on the board of the United Way, chairing its strategic planning committee.Volunteering on multiple fronts in the Jewish community, she came to understand her own community’s strengths and weaknesses and its needs.

“I was young, I was energetic, and I was lucky,” says Paperny, who volunteered in Young Leadership, United Jewish Appeal, and Calgary Jewish Federation, serving to the level of vice president.

Paperny describes Cheryl Shore—a former Calgary Jewish Federation president—as “instrumental in maintaining and insisting on” her community involvement, for which Paperny remains grateful.

Much of Paperny’s early legal work was in family law, where she encountered women experiencing violence and abuse.

“Don’t let society constrain you. Don’t be afraid. If you want to do something, you can, and you will be able to find allies who will support you. Finding them is an incredible gift because they can support you through the rough roads that might be ahead.”

“There were very few access points into the courts to protect those women,” recalled Paperny. “I came to learn a lot about the criminal justice system…a lot about family law, and a lot about the lack of resources available to women and their families in circumstances of abuse.”

Paperny discovered that abuse “transcended socioeconomic lines.”

“That was a really important thing for me to learn,” she said.

“I had to learn corporate and commercial law and corporate litigation in particular because I had to figure out how to break through the corporate veil and access assets for these women so that they could survive,” recalled Paperny, adding, “It changed the trajectory of my own career.”

Along the way, Paperny served as legal counsel for the Calgary Emergency Women’s Shelter and gave of her time to many other social services agencies supporting women.

Paperny’s life was busy. She became a partner at Howard Mackie soon after giving birth to her son Michael. She believes she was the only pregnant lawyer then working at a major law firm in Calgary.

Fortunately, says Paperny, “The firm was extremely supportive of me taking a mat leave.”

“I am not sure I understood how good they were at the time, nor did I take incredible advantage of it because I did not see, as a woman, that there were lots of choices at that time,” Paperny said.

It was still a man’s world. Paperny remembers being unable to enter certain clubs for business events.

“I always said I that I wouldn’t let this happen if I was ever in a position to make change,” she told AJNews.

One reason Paperny embraced the opportunity to serve as a judge was that she wanted to see family law reformed. She saw a need for a system that was “…more child-centred,” and where “women were paid a reasonable amount of support so that they could genuinely build lives for themselves and their children once they were no longer married.”

Paperny had a varied legal career. After practicing at Howard Mackie from the early 1980s through 1992, she worked in the Paperny family businesses and served on the board of the Alberta Securities Commission, where she chaired hearings. Though she initially stayed on as a partner as Howard Mackie, she realized there was a pressing need elsewhere.

“I had young children and I needed more time with them. I tried to create a world for me and a world for them that worked.”

Then, in 1996, Paperny was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench (now the Court of King’s Bench).

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me in terms of career,” says Paperny.

Though her children were still young, Paperny now had the opportunity to tackle the things that mattered most to her and she hoped that she could make a positive difference.

“I feel I was able to do that on an individual basis for women and for children and, when I got to the Court of Appeals, for the province and for the country.”

“I was privileged to be able to write on things that really matter on a daily basis,” recalled Paperny, adding that it was also “…the best thing I could ever have done for myself and my family because I was fulfilled, and if I was fulfilled, they were pretty happy.”

“My Jewish upbringing, the values instilled by my family, my schooling, and my social connections as I grew up, clearly guided me through my entire career. I was able to see the world through a special lens when I got to the bench and influence it…That’s the story of being a Jew…doing something for the community and leaving it a little better.”

Due to the strict code of ethics for judges, Paperny—who, notably, served on the Canadian Judicial Council committee that recently rewrote the ethical guidelines for judges—was required to withdraw from much of her political and social engagement in the community, a change that was, initially, challenging.

Before her appointment, she had been active in causes including reproductive rights and the availability of birth control.

“I stepped away from them on an active, daily basis, but I was able to deal with them on a macro level, on a legal basis, so that was great,” Paperny said.

A board member of the International Association of Women Judges, Paperny became involved in the rescue and resettlement of Afghan women judges through its Canadian chapter.

“Now there are probably 39 in Canada. Of those 39, seven live in Calgary, and of those seven, several of them are hoping to pursue a legal career and we are just currently connecting them with the University of Calgary so that we can eventually help facilitate their entry into the JD program,” Paperny told AJNews.

“Their stories are harrowing,” said Paperny. “Their zest for life and for survival is very similar to the refugee and immigrant stories of our grandparents and great-grandparents. So it was very easy to identify with them. One day they are judges in a country that is slowly embracing a form of democracy, and the next day their lives are in peril, and the lives of their families, and they flee with nothing.”

It is a story that cannot fail to move a Jewish soul.

From hiding in sewer systems, to making perilous journeys to airports for flights to countries nearly as unsafe for them, the women persevered, said Paperny.

“Their tenacity, their willingness to do absolutely anything to survive and then their ability to thrive in a new country, to learn the language, to start from scratch…it’s simply spectacular,” Paperny said. “It takes you back to our roots and what people did so that we could be empowered to do the things that I am able to do.”

Although she says she only played a small role in the rescue of the judges, Paperny’s participation is ongoing and “continues to be very meaningful.”

It is not the first rescue in which Marina Paperny has been involved. In 2016, the extended Paperny family partnered with Beth Tzedec Congregation to sponsor and resettle a refugee family from Syria. “It was an enormous undertaking,” said Paperny, emphasizing that her late father, Maurice Paperny, and her brother, Lorne Paperny, played a major role on behalf of the Paperny clan.

Among other good works, Marina Paperny has also been involved in a national task force on the retention of women in the legal profession which, she says, “continues to be a serious problem.”

In her new position at BLG, she hopes to “mentor young and very talented women,” and to “help make some structural changes that will improve women’s ability to succeed within the confines of the traditional legal structure.”

“I graduated from law school in 1978. The problems that I experienced [then] have not gone away. The barriers have diminished; there are far more women in the profession, but there are some fundamental changes that need to happen before women have full equality in the profession,” Paperny said.

The profession “is not nearly as accessible as it should be,” says Paperny, for women as well as individuals from visible and other minorities.

Paperny grew up in a family that valued human rights and grew up learning how to walk the talk.

“This is just what you do,” said Paperny.

“You do your best to improve other people’s lives…. At the same time, your own will improve.”

Paperny’s grandmother, Annie Shumiatcher Paperny Green, came to Calgary in 1910 with her family. They were core members of the very small Jewish community in Calgary at that time.

Her great-grandfather, Judah Shumiatcher, was the Shammas at the Shul. Her grandfather Leo came to Canada about five years later. He and his friend Abe Pearlman were among the founders of the I. L. Peretz School, where Paperny studied from Kindergarten through Grade 6, later attending night classes through Grade Nine.

The school, which taught Yiddish and inculcated the values of Bundist Socialism, had a strong focus on social justice. The school was a labour of love for Paperny’s parents. Maurice served as president there and Myra chaired its board of education.

“The Peretz School was pivotal to me,” recalled Marina Paperny.

“I had an incredibly rich Jewish education imbibed with Yiddish culture and a very strong connection to my history, and an understanding of my religion…where Jews came from and where they could go..I credit the Peretz school for tons of things [including] my ability to focus and work.”

“I credit the Peretz school for tons of things [including] my ability to focus and work,” said Paperny, emphasizing that the provincially mandated curriculum made up but half of each school day.

“It made me a better student. I needed to learn time management. It made me comfortable standing up and speaking…we did a lot of that. I think of it very fondly and with much love.”

“Jewish summer camp [was] also fundamental to me,” said Paperny, fondly remembering summers spent at Camp Hatikvah, the Zionist summer camp where her mother was a counsellor when the camp was first established. Paperny’s children were the third generation to attend Hatikvah.

“The combination of a Jewish day school and Jewish summer camp gave me a very rich life in a city that at that time was not known for a hugely vibrant and enriched Jewish community. But it was.”

“Both my grandparents and my parents were truly community builders. They knew that Jewish institutions were the foundation of Jewish life,” Paperny said.

Maurice Paperny, a notable community leader and philanthropist, was the first president of the Alberta Civil Liberties Association and played a pivotal role in the province’s adoption of the Fair Employment Practices Act during the 1950s. He was very involved in the work of the Calgary Jewish Community Council (later Calgary Jewish Federation) and the inaugural chair and chief fundraiser of the Calgary Jewish Centre, today known as the Paperny Family JCC.

Myra Paperny was a leader in her own right.

“I have a really strong memory of my mother and her pals, Jenny Belzberg, Clarice Chodak, and Muriel Kovitz being big leaders in National Council of Jewish Women….These women were activists, really integral to bringing important Jewish issues and women’s issues into our homes and letting us understand them…One person can make a difference, but a group of women can change the world. And they did…they were amazing.”

“My Jewish upbringing, the values instilled by my family, my schooling, and my social connections as I grew up, clearly guided me through my entire career. I was able to see the world through a special lens when I got to the bench and influence it,” recalled Paperny. “That’s the story of being a Jew…doing something for the community and leaving it a little better.”

Mission accomplished for Marina Paperny, though she is very happy to continue giving back at BLG, in her community and in her expanded family.

When AJNews first reached out to Paperny, she was on her way to do Bubbie duty in Toronto, home to her daughter Samara, son-in-law Kris and granddaughters, Ruby and Mischa, who call her Bubs. Like her mother, Samara entered the legal profession.  She is a criminal defence lawyer.

Paperny and her husband, Dr. Shep Secter — described by Paperny as “the love of my life for almost 43 years” — are also proud parents of Michael, a local OBGYN who specializes in minimally invasive surgery and high risk. Michael and his wife Katie named their little boy Mo, after his grandfather Maurice, of blessed memory.

Marina Paperny’s personal and professional lives continue to evolve.

“It’s been a year of transition and figuring out what my reintegration into society looks like,” quipped Paperny, who has come back full circle to BLG, which her original firm, Howard Mackie, became a part of.

“It’s an opportunity to do some work in an area that I feel very comfortable in, with an opportunity to give something back.”

Passionate about women’s rights and human rights in general, Paperny expressed deep concern about the state of some of the world’s democracies, a concomitant lack of respect for the rule of law that could lead them to crumble, and, in particular, the perilous situation currently faced by Israel.

“I hope we can all be in a position to change things and make the world better,” said Paperny.

She plans on it, and has more great advice for young women who want to do the same:

“Don’t let society constrain you. Don’t be afraid. If you want to do something, you can, and you will be able to find allies who will support you. Finding them is an incredible gift because they can support you through the rough roads that might be ahead.”

 Maxine Fischbein is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter for Alberta Jewish News. 

 

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