About
I’m Paul Karvanis.
I’m a lawyer.
I was called to the bar in 2010 and I only stopped practicing in 2022. I started on Bay Street at one of Canada’s top firms, then moved in-house at a major international retailer, and later finished my legal career in the public sector at a crown agency.
I’m a coach.
A High Performance and Happiness coach, to be precise. I started coaching in 2017 and, in early 2018, trained as a coach with the Co-Active Training Institute (I’m a Certified Professional Coactive Coach).
I also hold the Professional Certified Coach (PCC) designation with the International Coach Federation.
I’m a speaker.
I’ve spoken at conferences in rooms that hold 600, and I’ve spoken at in-house legal departments in meeting rooms that barely hold 5. I’ve spoken at international firms in front of their entire national first year class, and I’ve spoken in small boutiques in front of their 7 associates.
It’s a privilege to speak in front of an audience, see the material land with them, field questions and help them with their path forward. I feel very lucky to get to do this work.
I’m a writer.
My first book, The Happy Lawyer book was released in Fall 2023 and became a bestseller.
My next book, The Successful Associate will be released in February 2026.
What’s the common thread?
I have a deep curiosity and a brain that’s always trying to figure out how things work.
I love to solve problems. A good challenge can be an irresistible invitation. In undergrad, we participated in the Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge. We finished first at the University of Toronto, and fourth overall, beating out teams at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, among others.
Eventually, this curiosity was turned on myself. You see, I was not very happy as a practicing lawyer. Yet I had friends who were. I was driven by the need to find out — why were they happy when I wasn’t? What was I doing that they weren’t? And vice versa. This is what lead to The Happy Lawyer.
And then, when I was meeting with firms to see if they wanted to bring me in to give the Happy Lawyer Talk to their associates, I would often get the response: “This looks great. Let’s have you in to talk to our incoming first years.”
But that talk wasn’t made for them.
It was made for lawyers after they’ve got a handle on the practice, when they look up and think: What did I get myself into? Those are usually mid-level and senior associates (and often partners), not first years.
That was a problem until I realized it was an opportunity. I asked myself, “If that’s not the talk they need to hear, what do they need to hear?”
The answer to that question became the Successful Junior Lawyer Project and, almost 50 interviews later, became The Successful Associate.
And in helping my clients figure their path to success and ace its execution, I realized the point of Leader Rising:
To Prepare the next Generation Of Lawyers To Lead The Legal Industry
That’s the common thread in The Happy Lawyer, in The Successful Associate and in everything else we do. It’s about achieving success sustainably — about finding the intersection between happiness and high performance.
Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?