Lesra Martin laughs heartily when you ask what inspired him to become a lawyer. “There’s not a straightforward, or short, answer to that,” he says.
In fact, the answer includes the ghetto in New York City where Lesra was born and raised, it continues to his Toronto foster family who helped him go from illiteracy at age 15, to graduating from high school two years later with honours. While learning to read, Lesra came across the autobiography, ‘The 16th Round, of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter’, a black boxer who was wrongfully convicted in a triple murder in 1966. Lesra visited The Hurricane in jail in 1980 and vowed to help free him.
In 1985, The Hurricane was released from prison after serving 19 years. Carter’s freedom, and Lesra’s role in it, are documented in the 1991 book ‘Lazarus and The Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter’, the 1999 movie ‘The Hurricane’ starring Denzel Washington as Carter and Vicellous Reon Shannon as Lesra and the National Film Board documentary ‘The Journey of Lesra Martin’.
Lesra also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live to talk about it. So how does Lesra go from there to one-half of Martin & Martin Lawyers in Kamloops? Well, his foray into the law with The Hurricane led him to study at the University of Toronto and then Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he graduated from law school in 1997.
Articling followed with famed criminal defense lawyer Richard Peck in Vancouver. A job at the Crown prosecutors office in Kamloops followed in 1998 and then opening his own firm, Martin & Martin, in downtown Kamloops, with his lawyer wife, Cheryl, in 2007. “I’ve had a fascinating journey,” says Lesra. “Those tragic times and uplifting stories have brought me to where I am today. First and foremost, I know law is a tool that helps people and the community. I’ve never lost that focus.”
Lesra and Cheryl met at Dalhousie and married shortly after graduation. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without her,” says Lesra. “We’re a true partnership and team and the basis of this family firm. Our goal is always to achieve the best for our clients.”
Lesra’s specialty is complex personal injury law, championing for those with brain injuries, chronic pain and long-term disability. Cheryl’s focus is wills, probate and real estate law.
The firm also has three other lawyers, Danielle Oliver, who practices in the area of wills and estate planning, James Mason, personal injury law, wills and estate planning and real estate, and newest associate Jasmine Russett, wills and real estate.
Martin & Martin is also opening a satellite office in Juniper, the Kamloops neighbourhood where the Martin family owns Juniper Market. “I’ve come full circle,” says Lesra. “My salvation started in a grocery store packing groceries at age 12 so I could earn money to help feed my family.”
