At Queen’s Law, students past and present are part of a strong community of peers and mentors that begins at school and carries on after graduation. On February 2, six Law’12 alumni – Sonia Beauchamp, Jonah Goldberg, Brooke MacKenzie, Caity O’Connor, Husein Panju and Brittany Sargent – returned to their alma mater to discuss the diverse ways in which their careers have unfolded.
“Queen’s Law Five Years Out” began with a panel discussion with the six alumni. Afterwards the panelists met with current students for one-on-one ‘coffee chats.’ The Law Students’ Society Alumni Relations Committee and the Career Development Office partnered for the event.
“A career in law can go in so many different directions,” Goldberg reminded the students at the panel. Likewise, students come into law school and enter into legal careers from a variety of backgrounds.
“I didn’t come to law school with a grand plan to become a particular type of lawyer,” Goldberg said, telling students about his career. He studied history before coming to Queen’s Law and began his professional career at Torys in Toronto. He is now counsel for Strategy & Innovation at the Royal Bank of Canada.
Paul Kenney, Law’19, a committee member, said he enjoyed learning about “so many interesting and successful career paths that emerged from opportunities outside the official recruitment processes.”
Beauchamp had a career as an accountant before coming to Queen’s. She knew she wanted to be a criminal lawyer because “you get to give a voice to a lot of people who don’t have voices.” Today, she does exactly that as a Crown attorney in Toronto, where she specializes in prosecuting child abuse, Internet child exploitation, and child pornography offences.
“Sonia gave me a lot of insight into what working as a Crown is really like,” Kenney said, appreciative of the chance to have had a conversation with Beauchamp.
MacKenzie studied theatre as an undergraduate and initially planned to be a teacher. Coming to law school, she knew she wanted to be a civil litigator, but she did not expect to start her own firm. After beginning her career at McCarthy Tétrault, she co-founded MacKenzie Barristers, a practice focusing on civil appeals and professional responsibility and liability issues.
“The benefits of being in a small firm are that you can choose your clients and build your practice.” MacKenzie encouraged students to think about their career path on an ongoing basis. “I’m glad I had good mentors reminding me to do that.”
Panju worked at all three levels of government before his current role as an in-house counsel and public affairs consultant for StrategyCorp in Toronto. He highlighted the applicability of legal skills to consulting, including point-first writing and client management. Outside of work, Panju is also the creator and host of the first legal-based podcast in Canada, Lawyered. This award-winning program features interviews with top Canadian lawyers who take a critical look at current legal issues. It has listeners worldwide.
“It’s quite open to you to go into private practice, leave private practice for a period of time, and go back into private practice,” said Sargent, who worked at Blakes in Calgary and McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto before working at the Ontario Securities Commission. She is now an associate in the Corporation and Commercial Group at Bennett Jones in Toronto.
After graduating from Queen’s, O’Connor went on to take an LLM at the University of California, Los Angeles. She articled with Warner Horizon Television, and then was admitted to the California Bar in 2015. She is now Production Counsel for NZK Productions, the corporation behind The Bachelor, a reality TV series. “Know that you don’t have to be perfect,” O’Connor advised.
“Talking to Caity helped to give me a better understanding of entertainment law,” said Darien Murray, Law’20, who had a coffee chat with O’Connor after the panel. Murray noticed how supportive the Queen’s Law alumni network is. “All the alumni on the panel were so happy to see each other and while they talked, they kept bringing up old classmates and the network that has followed them into the workforce.”
“The Alumni Relations Committee provides law students with a special forum to network with Queen’s Law alumni for the purposes of enriching student-alumni relations, encouraging active participation by alumni and broadening the scope of extra-curricular learning opportunities offered to students,” explained Dianne Butler, the Coordinator of Alumni Relations for the Law Faculty.
“Whenever asked, our alumni are always willing and delighted to meet, engage and mentor law students,” she added.
“Five Years Out,” now in its fourth year, is a fixture in the annual career development and alumni calendars at Queen’s Law. Jeremy Mutton and Sayde-Hope Crystal, both Law’19, moderated this year’s panel.
By Alexander McPherson