All of us at SV Law were extremely sad to hear of the passing of Paul Smith on February 9, 2025.
Paul was one of the founders of the firm that is now SV Law, starting the firm in 1965 with his friend and law school classmate, David Smith. The firm was known by many names over the years [Smith Smith. Payne Smith Smith, Payne Smith Smith & Campbell, Smith Smith Gazzola Sansom & Holub, SmithValeriote and now SV Law].
I joined Smith, Smith, Gazzola, Sansom & Holub in 1993 as an articling student and Paul was a presence for the entire first 15 years of my time at the firm. When I started, he was the lawyer in charge of the finances for the firm and he was very gracious in subtly and slowly transitioning that role over to me without me even realizing that it was happening. He was always there to assist me when I had questions and although we had a number of different managing partners over the years when Paul was there, none of those managing partners (including me) was ever the “leader”. Paul was clearly the “leader” that we all looked to, that we all respected, that we all knew had only the best interests of all of us at the firm at heart and we all trusted him, his opinions and his wisdom implicitly.
When Paul retired at the end of 2007 he may have been physically gone from the office but he was never forgotten and his “presence” remains with us to this day. When I have to make a difficult decision I still think to myself “what would Paul do?, how would Paul approach this?”
Paul was a gentleman and a family man who loved helping people and he helped so many of us here at SV Law and so many of our clients. Paul was the embodiment of excellence in his community. We will all miss Paul greatly but his “presence” will still live on in those of us who were able to work with him and especially in all the members of his family whom he loved so much.
Mark Muir Rodenburg, Managing Partner