Many Queen’s Law graduates are recognized as outstanding general counsel, and now a trio of them have more hardware to prove it. At the 2016 Canadian General Counsel Awards (CGCA) gala, Sheila Murray, Hugh Kerr and Betty DelBianco, all ‘80s grads, took three of the seven awards for being tops in their field. The awards, established by the National Post and ZSA Legal Recruitment, were presented on June 1 in Toronto. 

Sheila Murray, Law’82 (Com’79): 
The Business Achiever earns her seat at the table

Sheila Murray, winner of this year’s Business Achievement Award, has successfully made the leap since 2008 from in-house counsel to President and General Counsel of CI Financial Corp. in Toronto. After 25 years practising with Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, she joined CI – one of the country’s largest independent financial investment fund companies – as General Counsel eight years ago, was promoted to Executive VP in 2009, then President last February. 

Murray says making the change has been challenging but extremely exciting – even fun. “As lawyers we’re trained to be reactive rather than pro-active, to problem-solve and offer advice and opinions and not generally be the decision-maker. When I made the transition from private practice to in-house, I became part of the executive team. I started to participate in decision-making.”

If lawyers want to play a more meaningful role at a corporation, Murray says it’s important for them to make that leap to the boardroom. “It’s vital you have a seat at the table where decisions are being made and strategy is being set. Otherwise you continue being an advice-giver after the strategic decisions are made instead of being an active participant in the process.” 

The key to success in her job, Murray says, is being able to make decisions and live with the results. “You’re not always going to get it right. The consequences of not making decisions are far greater than the consequences of making decisions that may be less than perfect. As a senior executive you have to be prepared to take the risks and help the corporation move forward.”

What motivates her is a desire to be intellectually challenged and to provide value to her company. She also finds great reward in working with an incredible team at CI. “I’ve been extremely well supported here. It’s a fantastic executive team – encouraging and giving me opportunities I never would have dreamt of.”

Murray, currently Chair of the Dean’s Council at Queen’s Law, says she’s paying back for her “extraordinary training” there. “The whole law student experience trains grads to be thoughtful – someone who can seize a problem, analyze it and communicate well. That’s what Queen’s did for me.”

Hugh Kerr, Law’88: 
The Deal-Maker breaks new ground with North American first in insurance 

Hugh Kerr, VP and Associate General Counsel of Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, received the Deal Making Award for two complicated, high-profile, pension-risk transfer transactions he managed as the chief legal advisor for the pensions business unit at Sun Life. 

The first transaction involved the Bell Canada pension plan that transferred $5 billion of pension risk from the BCE plan to Sun Life. Kerr explains the deal, a longevity insurance agreement, was the first of its kind in North America. “We were breaking new ground with the contract, being the direct insurer with the pension plan, and then having to reinsure a portion of the liabilities. It meant multi-party negotiations and a dispute resolution mechanism far more challenging than you might think.”

The second deal may be Canada’s largest inflation-linked transaction. A $530-million group annuity deal involved two pension plans with unrelated employers, who were aware of each other’s involvement but not identities. The transaction allowed each pension plan to transfer the full pension liability for certain plan members to Sun Life. “What was unusual,” Kerr explains, “was that each pension plan provided indexing of the benefits. We were able to find that the two plans had offsetting indexing formulas and create an asset mix that lowered the cost of the annuities more than if each company had gone to the market by itself. The challenge was that negotiations had to finish and the dollars had to flow to us on the same day, so we could go out and buy the assets.” 

Thinking back to that day, Kerr says the job can be stressful, but he feels he brings a level head and a strong business perspective. “I have a good team here. It was long hours, but these deals were both the first of their kind, which made it kind of fun.” 

His personal challenge in this life insurance job is that there is both internal and external oversight – “many eyes to satisfy.” However, he left Queen’s with a good grounding in the law and all aspects of corporate commercial law, he reflects. “That was my focus from the get-go. Gord Simmons, who taught contract law, prepared me well for interactions with counter parties and making sure you understand the deal.”

Betty DelBianco, Law’84: 
The Litigation Manager wins high-stakes class action case

Betty DelBianco, the winner of this year’s CGCA for Litigation Management, successfully managed a complex securities class action that went all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. The lawsuit alleged that Celestica’s public filings about its restructuring from January 2005 to January 2007 contained misleading statements that caused shareholders to suffer financial damages. 

According to DelBianco, Executive VP, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Celestica, it was the complexity of the litigation and its multi-jurisdictional aspect that garnered her the award. “This was a long-running, cross-border, securities class action. In Canada the case went to the Supreme Court, where we were ultimately successful. In the U.S., we pursued a different strategy as a result of differences in the issues as well as differences in the two countries’ laws and procedural rules.”

DelBianco attributes the successful outcome to several factors. “We assembled a good team and we were very thorough in our diligence. You need to set a strategy and stick to it. Certainly I had the support of my CEO and my board of directors.

“To be a successful general counsel,” DelBianco says, “you need to have a good connection to the business, be tied into the overall company strategy, be pragmatic, and always look at how what you’re doing fits into the bigger picture.”
 
She adds that she’s motivated by wanting to do a good job and contribute value to the business. While she’s found no obstacles on the job, personally, she says she’s always in one ongoing battle. “As any general counsel will tell you, you’re constantly competing for resources with the rest of the company so you never have the budget you’d love to have.”  

She got just what she needed during her time at Queen’s Law, though. “I got a tremendous legal education at Queen’s,” says DelBianco, who is now a member of her alma mater’s Dean’s Council. “It certainly helped my career. I was lucky enough to have fantastic professors like Dave Mullan and Nick Bala, as well as extraordinary classmates in Law’84 who’ve become life-long friends.” 

By Georgie Binks