Latest news with #CGCA
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘A team that I'm proud of': How Irving Oil's John Laidlaw built an East Coast legal legacy
by Jim Middlemiss John Laidlaw never imagined he would spend the twilight years of his career navigating Ireland's complex energy markets, but sometimes the best opportunities arrive when you least expect them. The 2025 recipient of the CGCA's BLG Stephen Sigurdson Lifetime Achievement Award made what he calls 'a leap of faith' in 2016, leaving a 32-year partnership at law firm Cox & Palmer in Saint John, N.B. to become chief legal officer at Canadian energy giant Irving Oil Ltd. 'I was at a point in my life where my youngest of four was wrapping up her undergrad degree, and we were empty nesters,' recalled Laidlaw, now in his 10th year at the Saint John-based energy company. 'You start to look around and say, 'Maybe I've gone as far as I'm going to go in private practice, and maybe I should think about what lies ahead.'' The conversation that changed his trajectory began innocently enough — a casual discussion with Irving Oil's then-president Ian Whitcomb about whether he would move in-house. For someone who had built his reputation as a corporate commercial lawyer handling everything from public-private partnerships to advising clients in aquaculture, fisheries and agriculture, a move to the oil and gas industry represented a dramatic pivot in the latter stages of his career. 'Those around me whose judgment I respected were all of the view that this was something I should really think about,' said Laidlaw. 'Irving Oil has a stellar reputation, and opportunities like that don't always come along when you're in your late 50s.' He admits it was a huge change, likening it to drinking from a firehose. Fortunately, he learned early in his career how to be a quick study. 'You never stop learning in any business, but particularly so being a corporate commercial lawyer. Whoever walks in the door, you've got to learn their business fairly quickly to be able to provide good, sensible and competent advice,' he said. The company supported him through the transition. 'They were very patient with me as I got up to speed. This is a very fascinating, complicated business, and one where you never stop learning.' The transition from external counsel to corporate insider proved transformative. Within months, Laidlaw found himself at the centre of Irving's historic expansion into Ireland, advising on the 2016 acquisition of that country's only oil refinery from Phillips 66. The Whitegate facility purchase was followed in 2019 by Irving's acquisition of the Tedcastle group, which operates under the Top Oil brand. 'The great thing about being here is you get to see things end to end,' Laidlaw said, contrasting his in-house role with private practice where deals concluded when documents were signed. Now, he says, 'when it's all said and done, you get to hang out at the party' after the deal and figure out how to 'integrate this and make it all work.' Irving Oil, founded in 1924 and still family-owned, operates Canada's largest refinery and has 900 fuelling stations spanning eastern Canada and New England. When Laidlaw arrived, Irving's legal department consisted of just his predecessor and one other lawyer. Today, he oversees eight legal professionals plus a 'very strong regulatory compliance team' — reflecting both the company's growth and the increasing complexity of energy sector regulations. 'I've built a team here that I'm proud of,' Laidlaw said, noting that four of his current team members followed him from Cox & Palmer. 'Many are lawyers and support staff who believed in what we were building here.' For Laidlaw, who was called to the New Brunswick bar in 1984 after earning his law degree from the University of New Brunswick, the most rewarding aspect of his career has been developing talent. During his Cox & Palmer years, he served as an instructor for the commercial law portion of the New Brunswick bar admission course for nearly 20 years and maintained an open-door policy for junior lawyers seeking guidance. He believes strongly in mentorship and coaching, because that's how he learned. 'I had some tremendous, mentors that cultivated me and brought me along,' he said. 'As you get a bit older, you realize the positive impact it had and so in my view, it's a duty or an obligation. I like to think the profession is pretty good at that, but it's something that everybody has to play a part.' Laidlaw's community involvement has also been extensive. He has served as chair of the Saint John area New Brunswick Provincial Mental Health Tribunal, the Centracare Foundation and the Horizon Health Network, one of the province's two health authorities. 'I was brought up in a household where you were expected to give back,' he explained. 'To whom much is given, much is expected.' At 67, Laidlaw shows no signs of slowing down. 'I'm obviously in the downward slope given my age, but I don't intend to leave Irving Oil anytime soon,' he said. 'I'm not sure I would ever fully stop doing something.' His advice to young lawyers reflects the humility that colleagues consistently note: be the first to arrive and last to leave, see everything as an opportunity, and remember that success often comes down to being in the right place at the right time — then having the courage to walk through the door when it opens. Irving Oil president steps down amid strategic review Arthur Irving out as chairman of Irving Oil For Laidlaw, that door opened nearly a decade ago in Saint John, leading to what he describes as some of the most fulfilling years of his legal career. 'It sort of reignited things for me at a point where I wasn't quite ready to wind down,' he said. 'This has been absolutely wonderful.' Sign in to access your portfolio
Jordan Times
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
Journalism faces challenges of AI, misinformation, declining trust
Dean Jelani Cobb delivered a keynote speech at Columbia Global Centre Amman on how we fact-check, combat hate speech and address misinformation (Photo courtesy of CGCA) AMMAN — Facing challenges in a form of artificial intelligence (AI), economic turmoil and social dynamism, the journalism of 21st century strives to find a way to avoid all these pitfalls and remain relevant. Columbia Global Centres Amman recently organised a talk titled" Fault lines and Deadlines" where issues related to problems of the modern journalism were addressed by Jelani Cobb, a writer, journalist and professor of Journalism at Columbia University in New York City. The profession of journalism is experiencing tectonic changes and challenges of scale that is very difficult to find historical comparison, noted Cobb, adding that it has been the steady decrease in the media trust. "For the long time, I had one understanding of this as a dynamic that was related to very particular, very specific and partisan dynamics in the US and its politics. But in time, I came to observe as have many scholars and people who studied that question about the extent to which this is in fact a global problem that we see a decrease in trust in media across the board," Cobb underlined. The journalist noted that Reuters Institute conducted studies a few years ago in which only 38 per cent of people in 40 different countries trusted news. The research was completed before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contradictory news, misinformation and systematic spread of panic, conspiracy theories and blatant lies, which characterised that period-contributed to even lower trust in printed and online media. At the point where calibre of the information on the pandemic could be a decisive factor to whether people survived or die from a virus the number of people who trusted media further dropped. This problem is exacerbated not only by the growing distrust in news organisations but in the growing trust the people and outlets in which public bestowed its faith and given trust to, and the questionable nature of much of the information that is produce in these other kinds of outlets on the Internet and social media and so on, Cobb elaborated. The writer added: "We can see always present possibility of violence becoming much more prevalent." Last year, we saw, according to the Committee for the protection of journalists 98 journalists were killed around the world. This trend is progressive as each year the higher number of journalists, war reporters and editors lose their life while being on duty. Gaza Strip, West Bank and Lebanon have been places where around 160 journalists were killed and wounded by IDF since October 2023. "I want to point out that these are not distinct crisis; the escalating number of journalists who have died while conducting their work is connected to the declining trust and faith that the public places in media." "The less people trust us the more vulnerable we are," Cobb underlined, noting that it is easier to discredit journalists and to make it seem that deaths of reporters have occurred in a course of conducting some nefarious practice on behalf of some questionable policy, but certainly in pursuit of particular agenda. Another problem is the emergence of artificial intelligence as it greatly enabled the capacity of people to produce misinformation and disinformation at scale. "AI has brought many challenges aside from gigantic quantity of misinformation and disinformation," Cobb said, adding "as we saw in June last year, the conflict between AI and Forbes Magazine. Forbes Magazine spent months to put in two of its best reporters into a story about Eric Schmidt, a co-founder of Google and his initiative to create a military-grade drone. "Within the moment of this story being published perplexity AI machinery had generated a lookalike story. A complete paraphrase of all the language, including the quotes but without the reference to Forbes Magazine." The story was spun into social media posts which gained a great attention, more than the original story from the magazine. It created also the conflict over copy rights, Cobb underlined, adding that investigative reporting is the most expensive undertakings in any new outlet, however, due to AI investigative reporting may become financially unsustainable. "AI will cost us jobs. Most certainly in the media landscape and in other landscapes we cannot escape a reality that the emergence of these technologies will result in jobs that are currently filled with human beings no longer being necessary," Cobb underscored. It is a reality and media employees should deal with it now before it is too late.
