Navigate your career transition and discover new purpose beyond the legal profession with actionable strategies to design a fulfilling and rewarding next chapter.
For many lawyers, retirement is not simply a financial milestone—it is an identity shift that raises complex questions about purpose, relevance, and self-worth. In this reflective and candid session, lawyer Stephen Herman and educator Evelyn Neaman explore why so many legal professionals struggle to plan for or even consider retirement.
Drawing on themes from their documentary Retirement on Trial, which has resonated with lawyers across jurisdictions and career stages, the presenters examine the emotional and psychological dimensions of leaving legal practice. Through selected film clips and guided discussion, participants are invited to reflect on the internal tensions that arise when professional identity has been deeply intertwined with the practice of law.
This session offers a thoughtful space to explore transition, legacy, and reinvention, helping legal professionals better understand the personal challenges that can accompany retirement planning.
Key Topics Discussed:
Canadian civil litigator | documentary filmmaker and co‑creator of Retirement on Trial
Stephen Herman is a Canadian civil litigator with more than three decades of experience helping clients through legal disputes while championing advocacy and professional collegiality. Like many lawyers, he eventually faced two questions his legal training couldn't answer: Is there more to life than the practice of law? And what happens when the career that defined you ends? Those questions sent him from the courtroom to the camera. While still practicing, Stephen began making documentary films exploring justice and social impact in Ethiopia, Central America, Guyana, and Vietnam – work that opened new pathways for creativity and, paradoxically, renewed his commitment to the law. His film, Retirement on Trial, wrestles with a question most lawyers prefer to avoid: how to face the end of a defining career. Framed as a courtroom-style inquiry with a touch of humour, Stephen takes on the case of his career – defending retirement. Lawyers, judges, and other professionals testify, revealing their fears, their assumptions, and the possibilities they hadn't yet considered.
Program leader, justice educator, filmmaker, wellness practitioner
Evelyn Neaman is a Vancouver-based program leader, educator, filmmaker, and wellness practitioner with more than 30 years of experience advancing access to justice in Canada and internationally. During her tenure with the Justice Education Society, she designed and led complex initiatives and training programs involving the public, judiciary, lawyers, and police, in Canada and in countries such as Ethiopia, Central America, Guyana, and Vietnam. Together with Stephen, she's created documentaries and success stories that translate complex institutional change into compelling narratives. That experience informs her work on Retirement on Trial, where she served as producer, writer, and director. Drawing on her background in cultural anthropology and curriculum design, as well as her own career transition, she brings a distinctive lens to the film's exploration of how identity, purpose, and community evolve in later career stages. For more than 25 years, Evelyn has also taught yoga and mindfulness practices to diverse audiences, including judges and lawyers, locally and internationally. She brings particular insight into stress management for people working in the legal field, and runs a boutique yoga studio in Vancouver.
