Dick Hamilton, K.C. has retired.  After 50 years as a leading employment lawyer and later, the preeminent mediator for workplace disputes in British Columbia, Dick has decided to pack up his shingle and retire to a life of island living, bike riding, book reading, big thought thinking, travelling, fooding and wine-ing.  It is not as if Dick did not do any of those while practising – he did them all and he did them exceedingly well.  Iron Man well.  In fact, Dick is an example to not only lawyers but to everyone on how to live a decent and passionate life while contributing to the good of the world through one’s work.  Dick started Hamilton & Co. on April Fool’s Day in 2001.  It was no joke, though.  He brought with him his talented junior lawyer, Nicole Howell, who shared his commitment to excellence, superlative ethical principles, love of Volkswagen vans, and an enormous appetite for physical adventure.  What a combination!  Soon Hamilton & Co. became Hamilton Howell and with foresight and wisdom the firm grew into its current incarnation: HHBG Lawyers.  At the moral and spiritual helm was always Dick Hamilton.  We know.  We have the T-shirt.  The T-shirt asks: “What Would Dick Do?”  Dick’s name (or at least his initial) stays on the firm’s masthead, and our Vancouver boardroom bears his full name, because we continue to practise employment law and live our lives based on Dick’s formidable example.  Dick has taught us that living life with decency and practising law as a profession (rather than as a job) can be done with decency, determination, fun and good humour (and terrible puns).  HHBG Lawyers – Employment Justice is but one of the legacies of Dick Hamilton.  We think it’s a damned fine one and wish Dick much fulfilment and many more adventures in a “retirement” that most of us can only hope to keep up with!