William M Leahey - Bullying the Bullies

1
Lawyer William M Leahey is Fighting to Ensure no
one will be Abused in Government Care
(William M Leahey )
2

• William Leahey is living proof that the political
  spectrum is not a straight line but a circle walk
  for enough out on the right wing and you'll met
  someone coming at you from a left wing.
• Leahey, 43 is a self-described ""tenacious and
  aggressive litigation lawyer and partner in the
  firm Leahey Nearing. With the force and
  conviction of a successful courtroom lawyer he
  lectures reporter on how government should stop
  being so intrusive get out peoples lives, lower
  taxes, and let them get on in life by being
  responsible for themselves.
• If he were interested in political he says with a
  laugh that it would be with the Reform party and
  you know how much support I'd get. We could fit
  the whole party in here, " he says referring to
  the four setter Barring Street Offices.
• But i am not he adds i am not a member of any
  party. I have no inside connections. I'll never
  be a judge. He laughs again and that's just fine.
• Leahey has become every corrupt politician's
  worst nightmare(and in Nova Scotia that covers a
  lot of ground) a righteous man with a mission.

3

• Since 1992 he has been vigorously pursuing the
  provincial government for compensation for men
  and women who were sexually and physically abused
  at children's while they were wards at
  provincially run homes for girls in Truro and for
  boys in Shelburne.
• Leahey discovered the issue when Gail Roose came
  to him in 1992 for help with her marriage
  breakdown and added she was also trying to get
  over the psychological damage of having been
  beaten and kept as a sex slave by a guard at the
  truro home when she was 13.
• The Guard is now a prison but Leahey and Roose
  wanted more. He wanted damages and she wanted to
  be able to get up on the stand face those people
  and tell her story, " Leahey says. They rejected
  an out of court settlement and won 75,000 in the
  compensation. That was raised to 85, 000 on
  appeal including 35,000 in punitive damages but
  Leahey wanted more.
• He wanted - still wants because the case is
  wending its way up to the Supreme Court of Canada
  - more in punitive damages for his client and
  this is at the heart of what is turning into a
  crusade for the mild-mannered articulate lawyer.

4

• Punitive damages are rarely awarded in Canada
  because a complainant in this case Roose has a
  prove not only negligence but also that the
  circumstances were so callous and shocking (in
  this case that others knew she was being beaten
  and raped and did nothing) that the court must
  punish those people with additional damages. Both
  sides are taking the case to the country's top
  court.
• Despite all the publicity and court action about
  child abuse in schools and institutions in recent
  years. Leahey says this is the first time court
  has upheld the principle that when the
  government acts as the protector of last resort
  for a child such as Roose - Whose only crime was
  her mother died of cancer and her father
  abandoned her - it does have a responsibility to
  look after the children it takes into its
  care(Lawyers for the province argued Roose was
  willing participant in her beatings and rapes)
• It established that there were an atmosphere of
  toleration of pedophilia by the male guards
  toward the female children Leahey says and that
  is the crux of the issue "You can't change
  pedophiles.

5

• They are what they are he says but as far as I'm
  concerned the people who protected (them) are
  worse by far. They who professed to be good.
  God-fearing Christians condemned these children
  to a life of psychological torture and
  personality disorders
• Using Roose as a fulcrum and his male clients
  from Shelburne as a level Leahey has begun prying
  the lid off RG-72 the huge secret file that is
  the accumulated records of the Department of
  Community Services and its predecessor
  departments. The Abuse is a given What Leahey
  wants to establish is the same sort of ugliness
  that came out of the recently aborted Somalia
  hearings what the chain of command knew and what
  if didn't do about it. Leahey can't disclose
  information that hasn't been presented in court
  but says he is close to establishing links up
  through the school administration all the way to
  the minister's office.
• When it's over Leahey says he hopes no longer
  will be able to say "Hire this person and keep
  him in that job, regardless of what he's done
  because he's a good party worker. It's a tall
  order considering that proponents of Nova
  Scotia's ingrained patronage system recently
  drove a sitting premier to resign.
• What's for Leahey? has be made enough money to be
  able to take on large number's of indigent abuse
  victims? No I can't afford it, and my partner has
  reminded me of that fact more than once he says
  Basically he says, " I hate bullies.

6

• Leahey was an asthmatic weak-ling when he was
  growing up in Dartmouth the fourth of seven
  children of a commercial traveler and his stay at
  home wife and although he started talking judo
  lessons at 11 outgrew his asthma at 13 and joined
  the military reserves at 16, Leahey like his
  abuse victims never got over being bullied as a
  child.
• As a good guilt-ridden catholic he want to St.
  Francis Xavier University in Antigonish and
  studied. economics. He met and married his wife
  the former Jane Anne Mackinnon at the end of his
  second year. They now have four children between
  the age of 10 and 18. After the graduation in
  1976 she supported them working as a nurse while
  he studied law at Dalhousie law school and
  afterward until he established a practice.
• Leahey says he had no grand plan when he become a
  lawyer other then to have a career. He started in
  real estate law with Spencer and Co. in Halifax
  in 1980 with the idea that it would enable him to
  meet a lot of people. It did but he found the
  work boring and gradually switched to litigation
  work, where he could put his public speaking
  sills - learned as a reader at church and in
  school debating societies - to good use.

7

• Clearly this member of what he describes as a
  pretty driven family has done well. He's a
  founding partner of the law firm of Leahey
  nearing started in 1994.
• But he admits his involvement in the child-abuse
  cases of the province's ward has touched a nerve
  that goes beyond career considerations. His
  profession he says enables him to respond to
  deeply felt emotions about people who use
  positions of power to do violence to those who
  are weaker then they.
• His right wing view that government should stay
  out of people's lives meets the left-wing view
  that government must help its citizens with the
  Leahey amendment that if government insists on
  getting involved it had better do it right.
• In spare time from his 12 hour days Leahey helps
  his wife taxi the kids to basketball, baseball
  and the Nova Scotia Tattoo he reads including
  being a reader at St. Vincent's Parish and
  pursues his life long interest in chess and
  military history.

8
Thanks for Visiting