Podcast: Law'80 Careers in Business Law

Title: Law'80 Careers in Business Law Panel - Navigating a career in the banking and financial sector

Date: Monday, October 20, 2025

Description: Queen’s Faculty of Law and the Corporate Law Club are pleased to showcase the annual Law'80 Careers in Business Law Panel. This year’s Q&A will focus on navigating a career in the banking and financial sector. Hear from three lawyers on the opportunities and challenges in this area of law.

Speakers:

Sam DiGiuseppe, Law'22 - Associate, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Alice Abbott, Law'88, MBA'96 - Formerly Global General Counsel, GPS Capital Markets
Erica Young, B.Comm’08 - Assistant Vice President and Senior Counsel, Canada Life

Podcast:

Queen's Law · QLawPod- Episode 47 - Navigating a career in the banking and financial sector

Transcript:

00:00:00
Have you here.
00:00:00
Lovely to see such a good turnout and thanks for everyone joining online as well.
00:00:05
My name is Laura.
00:00:06
This is Jenna.
00:00:07
We're the co-presidents for this year's Queen's Corporate Law Club.
00:00:11
But before we dive into this event, we'd just like to take a moment to recognize that Queen's University is situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory.
00:00:21
To acknowledge this traditional territory is to recognize its longer history, one predating the establishment of the earliest European colonies.
00:00:28
It is also to acknowledge this territory's significance for the Indigenous peoples who lived and continue to live upon it, people whose practices and spiritualities were tied to the land and continued to develop in relationship to the territory
00:00:41
and its other inhabitants today.
00:00:43
The Kingston Indigenous community continues to reflect the area's Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee roots.
00:00:49
There's also a significant Metis community and there are first peoples from other nations across Turtle Island present here today as well.
00:00:56
Fantastic.
00:00:57
So thank you so much, Laura.
00:00:59
The Queen's Corporate Law Club's mission is to educate the Queen's Law community about corporate law.
00:01:04
The Law 80 panel and business law provides an introductory understanding to corporate law.
00:01:10
This year, we're beyond thrilled to have Erica, Sam, and Alice join us as our guest speakers.
00:01:16
Before we dive into it, though, I'd like to take a moment to thank the class of 80, who sponsor this event each year.
00:01:23
As well, I'd like to give a special thanks to Professor Henderson and Natalie for bringing this event together.
00:01:30
But now, without further ado, I'll pass it off to Laura to give a little bit more of a background into our exceptionally accomplished guest speakers.
00:01:37
Yay.
00:01:37
So we're very excited to have you all.
00:01:39
Thank you so much.
00:01:40
Starting just going this way onwards, we have Sam Di Giuseppe.
00:01:45
Sam is an associate in the Banking and Specialty Finance Group at Castles, Brock and Blackwell LLP.
00:01:51
Sam's practice focuses on a broad range of domestic and international financing transactions, acting for both borrowers and lenders in secured and unsecured lending transactions, bilateral and syndicated facilities and project finance facilities.
00:02:07
also developing experience working with resource companies in the mining sector.
00:02:12
And Sam received his JD from Queens Law in 2022.
00:02:16
Fantastic.
00:02:17
Up next, we have Alice Abbott.
00:02:19
She has extensive experience leading legal departments in the financial sector, serving as global general counsel for GPS Capital Markets in Apex, as well as general counsel for Jameson Bank, which was acquired by Apex and for the Merchantile Exchange Corporation.
00:02:35
Alice specializes in legal department management, compliance, global regulatory roadmapping, and license acquisition management, and litigation management.
00:02:44
She earned an LLB from Queen's Law and an MBA from Queen's University.
00:02:49
And last but not least, we have Erica Young.
00:02:52
Erica currently practices law in-house at Canada Life.
00:02:55
She plays a key role in supporting and overseeing from a legal perspective, the investment dealer and mutual fund dealer operation and wealth management lines of business at Canada Life.
00:03:05
She obtained her JD from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen's.
00:03:11
Fantastic.
00:03:11
So we're going to dive right into it.
00:03:13
We have a couple of questions prepared for you all.
00:03:15
And maybe we can just go starting from Sam, Alison, Erica, and then we can switch it up as we go along.
00:03:20
But the first question is, the first question is, for many folks here, it's their first time gaining exposure into the corporate law world.
00:03:32
For you, what does the wide umbrella of business law entail?
00:03:34
And why did you choose to narrow your focus into the banking and finance sectors specifically?
00:03:40
Okay, so I mean, business law is a huge umbrella, right?
00:03:46
So it's banking work, it's M&A, it's securities, it's corporate governance, there's regulatory aspects to it.
00:03:54
So there's so much that falls under that umbrella.
00:03:57
For me, so I do lending is what we call it at castles.
00:04:00
I think it's referred to different things at different places, but essentially secured financings.
00:04:05
What drew me to that particular practice was sort of
00:04:09
Two things.
00:04:10
One, I really like the structure of the deals that I was seeing as an articling student.
00:04:14
I'm obviously very junior and don't have a ton of experience.
00:04:17
I'm about to be a third year associate, but...
00:04:20
I liked the pace of the transactions.
00:04:21
I liked how collaborative it was with opposing counsel as opposed to say, like an M&A or a securities deal, because we're drafting loan documents that govern a relationship for a long time.
00:04:32
There's a lot more collaboration between sides, which I really liked.
00:04:35
And then there was also, I felt a great deal of mentorship from that particular group at my firm, which is what drew me to it in particular.
00:04:45
Well, for me, I mean, I can't add anything to what Eric, how we've defined the umbrella, but for me, my career is not curated.
00:04:55
Business law chose me.
00:04:57
I was not as intentional in my career path.
00:05:01
It was mostly chance that my first job after clerking, I clerked after I articled.
00:05:08
My first job after clerking was at the Department of Justice, and it was an incredibly high volume of caseload.
00:05:14
and a very, very narrow focus.
00:05:15
So I was going to federal court for the Court of Appeal, lots of responsibility, but in a very narrow slice of law, which at that time was immigration and refugee work, appeals mostly.
00:05:26
And I just realized there was not much, I was not going to learn much.
00:05:30
There wasn't going to be much opportunity for me because I could see it was a very political place and I had not learned to play the political game yet.
00:05:38
So I, and there was nothing special about me.
00:05:40
So there was nothing that I really, no way that I distinguished myself in law school.
00:05:44
Nobody said, oh, she'll be great at that.
00:05:45
I still felt like I was unconfident, floundering quite a bit, couldn't find my niche.
00:05:51
So I felt that the best way to broaden my skill set and make something special, make something that's particularly different about me was I did it the hard way and I went back and did my MBA.
00:06:01
at Queen's and it was the full term, the two year residential MBA.
00:06:04
And it was a real learning experience, but I did learn things that I did not know.
00:06:10
And that combination of law and MBA just gave me the skill set and also made me much more attractive to certain types of employers.
00:06:19
And that's basically how I ended up in business law.
00:06:22
Yeah.
00:06:25
I think I share your view, Alice.
00:06:27
A lot of it is sort of circumstance, like opportunities that came up, files that I was staffing when I was a young lawyer, and job opportunities that have come up prior to my current position that sort of steered me towards business.
00:06:40
I do have an undergrad in business, so I think I'm minded to our way.
00:06:43
I'm the daughter of a small business owner.
00:06:45
My parents own a fish and chip restaurant for about 50 years.
00:06:48
So I just think
00:06:50
To me, business always seemed very tangible.
00:06:52
It was something I could understand.
00:06:53
It was the way I understood the world.
00:06:55
And so providing legal advice early in my career, when I was in private practice and I was a commercial litigator, I was...
00:07:02
Advising largely people that seem like my dad, right?
00:07:05
Like people who own businesses who just had business problems, like a dispute with their landlord or their employee or with a vendor or whatever it is, their business partner.
00:07:13
And so I think at the early stages of my career, in that respect, it felt like law that I could really understand its applicability and it felt a lot more real than...
00:07:23
The part of law school, which I did love, which was this real abstract intellectual pursuit, which was equally rewarding and exciting, but sometimes felt a little bit disconnected from the world that I grew up in or the world that I felt like I dealt with day-to-day in my day-to-day, so outside of school.
00:07:38
So that's kind of how I ended up in business.
00:07:40
And I would say it kind of built since every sort of career juncture I've had, every change in job from being in private practice and litigation, then I moved to a regulator.
00:07:52
self-regulatory organization.
00:07:54
And I was there for almost seven years.
00:07:55
And at that time, it was focused specifically on securities.
00:07:58
I was at the IROC, which is at the time, now it's called Zero.
00:08:02
So they're regulators for investment dealers and mutual fund dealers.
00:08:05
So it was a bit intentional because again, it was an area that I'd litigated in and that I understood, but it was also just a great working opportunity.
00:08:12
And then I developed an expertise in that.
00:08:14
And since then, every job subsequent to that has been focused on utilizing that specific area of legal expertise.
00:08:21
So
00:08:21
a mixture of a bit of intentionality, but a bit of just luck and opportunities.
00:08:27
Leaping off spots.
00:08:28
That's right.
00:08:28
Yeah.
00:08:31
And you all have such different paths of getting to where you are today.
00:08:35
And it's really interesting for us in the room to hear how that can kind of play out.
00:08:40
So with that in mind, we're curious if there are any key moments or choices along the way that particularly helped you shape your career.
00:08:48
So maybe we can go
00:08:49
Reverse order, maybe Erica first.
00:08:51
The biggest, and so just to your point, one of the best parts I say about being a lawyer is the fact that you will get this variety.
00:08:59
You will get folks who said, I know exactly what I want to do.
00:09:01
I wanted to do tax law, and they do that, and they summer article, become a partner, and that's what they do.
00:09:07
And that's amazing.
00:09:08
You will also get the opposite.
00:09:09
You will also get people who said, like, I did this for a while.
00:09:11
I stopped practicing.
00:09:12
I worked in the business.
00:09:13
I worked in compliance, and then I went back to doing law.
00:09:16
And I think that's the best part about getting a legal degree is that it doesn't like you
00:09:19
get that and you develop a basket of skills and you can actually apply it in so many different worlds.
00:09:25
It's not narrowing, it's actually seeing it as opening up the world of opportunities and including in roles that you didn't even realize you could do.
00:09:34
So certainly in law school, I think my current practice, I do a lot of things that I didn't even realize when I was a student I could do and the type of work I do daily.
00:09:44
one of the key junctures for me just professionally was I summoned an article that a Bay Street firm and I was not hired back.
00:09:50
And it truly felt just absolutely devastating, right?
00:09:52
Like my life is over.
00:09:53
I'm never going to be a lawyer.
00:09:55
This is awful.
00:09:56
Notwithstanding the fact that like I was called at the same time, you know, like you finish your articles, you're called to the bar, you are officially a lawyer.
00:10:02
And it takes so long.
00:10:04
Like all of you who are in it now, just think about how many hoops you have to jump to.
00:10:07
We were talking about, you know, midterms and doing your first course, your first exam, but like even up to
00:10:13
to this stage, doing well in undergrad, being part of extracurriculars, applying, doing the LSAT, getting in, then you have to finish and then you have to apply for a job and then you have to finish your articles or you do LPP and all of that.
00:10:27
And you just go through so many hoops.
00:10:28
So it really felt devastating, but it actually ended up being a great turning point for me to remind myself of what I just said.
00:10:34
Like there's so many opportunities and actually I'm just at the start and I finally am called all this work, all these years of dedicated study and
00:10:44
discipline and you finally get called and actually it meant like I could do whatever I want and I could actually focus on really thinking about what do I like, what do I not like, what do I want to explore?
00:10:54
And so that ended up being a great way for me to read, like, although I was really sad, it also forced me to be a lot more intentional and not just kind of like
00:11:04
feel like I'm kind of floating along and just going with the flow.
00:11:06
Like, oh, everyone's doing OCIs.
00:11:07
I'll do OCIs.
00:11:08
Oh, everyone's applying to these firms.
00:11:09
I don't know the difference.
00:11:10
I guess I'll apply to them.
00:11:11
It sounds like a good plan.
00:11:12
Instead to be like, no, let's take a breather.
00:11:14
What do I actually want?
00:11:16
What are lawyers I respect and what do they do?
00:11:18
And maybe I should talk to them.
00:11:20
And I think that really served me well in terms of giving me confidence to date in every position since.
00:11:26
where if I suddenly no longer am interested in what I do or I'm craving something different, I have confidence to say, well, it's time to move.
00:11:32
It's time to think of something else.
00:11:33
It's time to like bring out the resume and start having coffee dates and look online and look for a new opportunity because I
00:11:42
I don't need to be constrained because someone told me I should be doing a job or I shouldn't be on a particular path.
00:11:47
In fact, it's the opposite, that I have all these skills and I'm only gaining more experience the more years I practice and I have a lot of flexibility to do it.
00:11:54
So I think that early experience of being very, very disappointed, but building a little resilience and building a lot more self-confidence to be able to sort of take my own career into my own hands and actually make intentional choices about the type of work I wanted to do.
00:12:08
That was important.
00:12:09
Yeah.
00:12:11
Yeah, I had a, it's funny, I had a similar experience in the sense that other than getting my MBA, that was a key moment because that sort of set my path.
00:12:18
But also having like a chance focus on developing in securities compliance.
00:12:24
So I also worked for, before it was IROC, was the IDK.
00:12:28
And that's why I was there.
00:12:31
Yeah.
00:12:31
And I also worked at the OSC.
00:12:34
So there's that focus on securities compliance really opened up the world of more employers, right?
00:12:43
So you're now good for regulators.
00:12:47
I worked for TD Waterhouse managing their, so across the other side of the street.
00:12:52
So I was of interest to them because I had lots of securities compliance experience from the regulator side.
00:12:58
So I decoded that black box.
00:13:00
I was a black box.
00:13:01
You know, so normally they don't know what happens.
00:13:03
What's the regulator thinking?
00:13:04
Well, I can tell you.
00:13:05
I say that about like 10 times a day.
00:13:08
Yeah, exactly.
00:13:09
Yeah.
00:13:09
So, and also then I, you know, as my career kind of meandered on, I mean, I was between gigs and I could do security, I could do
00:13:17
compliance consulting.
00:13:18
I was writing policy procedures manuals and advising investigations, all sorts of that basket of skills, just amazing.
00:13:26
So in terms of key junctures was that chance of starting to develop specialty in securities compliance.
00:13:32
And the other key juncture I would say is getting my first job in foreign exchange.
00:13:36
And foreign exchange is like an alternate payments plan.
00:13:40
platform.
00:13:42
It's money transmitting and money exchange, and it also has aspects of securities because derivatives and forward contracts are like securities.
00:13:51
And so getting that first job in foreign exchange, that was the first time I felt like, oh, this is an industry I can be super good at.
00:13:59
I'm really interested in.
00:14:02
There's lots of business challenges, and it truly was a business still in the sense that
00:14:07
leaders were still trying to grow foreign exchange management and C-suite, they're still trying to grow the business.
00:14:13
They don't, they need that legal advice so badly.
00:14:16
So it wasn't a trodden path.
00:14:18
And then all it comes along with all the things that are running a business, the things you were describing with your father, vendor management, terminations, recruiting, HR, licensing, all the things.
00:14:30
So that was the other, I would say, juncture is coming into an industry that truly interested me.
00:14:39
So as far as like key moments go, obviously, again, like I'm only three years into this and so it's hard to, I don't know that there have been many, but I should clarify that I certainly did not come to law school with the intention of being like a banking lawyer.
00:14:55
I, for like background on me, I did my undergraduate degree in musical theater and then sang and danced for 10 years for a living and then went to law school.
00:15:03
So I,
00:15:04
I would like came in sort of more interested in litigation.
00:15:07
I felt like that was something that would be more suited to my skills.
00:15:10
And also wasn't totally certain that a career on Bay Street was right for me and kind of did the recruit.
00:15:16
I appreciate a lot of you are probably like in the middle of that process right now as an exercise to see whether or not I could would connect with any of these law firms.
00:15:26
Because I wasn't sure that
00:15:28
who I was pretty baked in by that point.
00:15:31
I was in my 30s.
00:15:32
I am who I am, and I wasn't sure whether or not that would fit into a corporate mold.
00:15:35
And so I think a turning point for me, so I went through the recruit, found some people at a great place that I really connected with.
00:15:43
And I think the turning point for me would have been in my summer,
00:15:48
doing a ton of sort of litigation work for the first month and a half, and then quickly realizing that I had absolutely no interest in doing that as a career and sort of shifting my approach and then making connections with mentors.
00:16:01
And you'll probably hear this a ton, and I'm sure it will be this experience for all of you as well, like people you meet along the way will totally shape your career and the way that it goes.
00:16:10
And so
00:16:11
And to be honest, if I had ended up at a different firm with different lawyers, I don't know that I would be practicing banking and specialty finance.
00:16:18
I probably wouldn't actually.
00:16:20
And so that was the sort of key point.
00:16:22
Was it realizing I didn't want to do litigation and then sort of connecting with this group at Castles?
00:16:29
Thank you all.
00:16:29
It's very frustrating to know that there are so many different things that you can do with a law degree, but I think sometimes students ask how to figure out where they belong.
00:16:39
And so whether that be at a big firm, a mid-sized firm, or in-house, and from your perspective, what should students prioritize when making these career choices?
00:16:48
And any advice you might have to all of us?
00:16:51
And we can start with Sam this time.
00:16:55
I think
00:16:56
It's easy to like be sitting here with a job telling you what to prioritize as you are literally in the middle of the recruit.
00:17:05
What I tried to prioritize when I was in that position was, like I sort of said, finding a place where I felt like I could bring my full self to work every day.
00:17:14
I think it's a hard job.
00:17:17
Parts of it are amazing and it's not always sort of as scary as people might want to make it seem, particularly a career on Bay Street, but it can be, right, like long hours and all of that.
00:17:26
And I think if you're not doing it with a team of people who respect you, even when you're junior, I think that just makes it so much harder.
00:17:33
So really, it's hard to feel like you're in the driver's seat.
00:17:37
And I'm speaking specifically about the formal recruitment process.
00:17:39
There's an amazing CDO here.
00:17:41
Mike and Julie are amazing.
00:17:42
Talk to them about all of the alternative options that there are, because truly, obviously, there are.
00:17:48
If you're going the formal recruitment path, remember that you are also looking for the place that you could end up working for the rest of your career.
00:17:56
You are just as much in the driver's seat in that way.
00:17:59
And just really like trust your gut.
00:18:01
If you are getting, if what you're receiving from a firm is not something that you think that you align with, then you shouldn't work there.
00:18:08
Again, easy for me to say in the position that I'm currently in, but that would be my advice.
00:18:14
And if you don't think, you don't have to do the recruit.
00:18:17
Like there are so many, I have friends who did not get jobs from the recruit who are way smarter and way more successful than I am.
00:18:25
It is just sort of that conveyor belt thing that you probably feel like you're trapped on, but really utilize the CDO because they're amazing.
00:18:34
Yeah, just to echo what you said, the concept of choice in your career is pretty limited, early years.
00:18:42
It really is.
00:18:45
You don't have much choice, really.
00:18:46
I mean, it's, for me, it was just, it was a lot of,
00:18:50
managing situations that were either negative or neutral and trying to make, no, honestly, it really was just trying to make the best choice from here.
00:19:00
And I agree, you want to be in a workplace that values you, but yeah, that didn't happen to me for the first 20 years.
00:19:06
So I'm happy for you really.
00:19:09
Yeah, no, seriously, it's just, you just really want to survive and, again, be looking to your next, as you were saying, being looking to your next.
00:19:20
jump should it not be working out or be prepared for your next push.
00:19:24
So sorry to say there's not a lot of choice.
00:19:27
Early years, maybe things are changing, I don't know.
00:19:29
Although I think I do know to a certain extent because I, you know, I'm still, I worked with.
00:19:35
Kids in the law practice program hired a lot of those.
00:19:37
And so, yeah, I have an idea of what goes on.
00:19:41
But I would say the most important thing is do not limit yourself to traditional legal roles.
00:19:46
There are so many legal adjacent roles.
00:19:49
They're not looking for a lawyer.
00:19:52
There's so many legal adjacent roles.
00:19:53
Don't worry if you don't practice as a lawyer or your job doesn't say cancel or whatever in those first few years.
00:19:58
You are picking up skills.
00:20:01
like we talked, compliance, risk, policy and procedure, editing, investigations, and even HR advisory.
00:20:11
And when you're doing HR work, you're learning the rules in different jurisdictions and terminations and so on.
00:20:17
So law adjacent jobs, please consider those.
00:20:20
And also non-mainstream employers of lawyers.
00:20:25
So
00:20:26
Governments, we got lots of levels here, regulators, administrative tribunals and bodies, self-regulating professions, they're all looking for lawyers at a lower level.
00:20:36
Like, you know, you're really in a sweet spot between one in three years and maybe one in five years.
00:20:42
Three to five years, you're in an amazing sweet spot.
00:20:45
And I know that must feel like a million years out right now.
00:20:47
Sorry.
00:20:47
But the three to five years I found were such a sweet spot for hiring because
00:20:52
you're really getting a lot of knowledge.
00:20:53
Like you're probably just, you've got a brain full of experience, but your price point is still good.
00:20:58
So I hire a lot of lawyers.
00:21:00
And so you're really, you're just at an amazing juncture right now.
00:21:05
So be open to non-traditional legal employers, unions, hospitals, the OBSI, the Ombuds for Banking and Services and Insurance Banking, Securities, and thank you.
00:21:22
privacy commission, that kind of thing.
00:21:24
Just do not only look at law firms, honestly.
00:21:26
And just like sneak peek, one of the very early decisions, and one of the few early decisions I made as I bounced along the sea of being a lawyer was I didn't want to work in private practice.
00:21:41
I articled in private practice in Ottawa.
00:21:44
And I had such a fear of clients and such a lack of confidence.
00:21:50
I just thought, I will not survive in private practice.
00:21:53
I mean, I have nothing to offer.
00:21:54
I'm just going to sit in this little cubicle forever and make mistakes.
00:21:57
So, I mean, good reason or bad reason, I don't know, but that was a decision I made early on.
00:22:03
So, I mean, early on, I had cut off that whole world of private practice.
00:22:07
And maybe I'm la-la-la to you guys right now, but there is a world of jobs out there for you.
00:22:14
and that are a little more, in my mind, slightly more structured than private practice, because I really did wonder, what am I gonna do in private practice?
00:22:21
I don't have any knowledge, I didn't, I mean, I had good articles, but I couldn't walk away saying any particular area interested me or any particular partner loved me to help them with their family practice or anything.
00:22:31
So, you know, just there's many options out there, you know, as a business.
00:22:39
That's such a great list.
00:22:40
Thanks, Alice.
00:22:41
That's why I brought that out.
00:22:43
That's really cool, ma'am.
00:22:45
I share everyone's both of your views.
00:22:48
I would put one change, though, Sam, to your point that I don't think it needs to be.
00:22:53
I think your needs will change over your life.
00:22:55
And I can say that because I had very different needs at the beginning.
00:22:59
I just wanted a job.
00:23:00
I had I was broke and I needed a job and I just needed money to pay back my loans and the bank was calling.
00:23:06
So sometimes that means you just take whatever job
00:23:09
will pay you the most.
00:23:10
And that's okay because at that point in your life, that may be, or other times in your life, that may just be it.
00:23:15
And you will, to your point, Alice, tolerate not feeling like you're being valued or being worked to the bone or any of the things that later in your career, you may be like, absolutely not.
00:23:26
I will not stand for that because you are able to make those trade-offs.
00:23:29
It's just sometimes it is trade-offs, right?
00:23:30
So sometimes it is not a perfect fit, but you know what?
00:23:33
It's great.
00:23:34
I think one mentor I had put it perfectly to say, sometimes you have to think about your role, not
00:23:39
as where you're going to be, but the stepping stone to the next job, which may be the stepping stone to the next job.
00:23:44
And the moment I thought of a career that way, it opened it up to say, all right, this isn't perfect, but honestly, it's good.
00:23:50
Like when I'm here, I'm going to get great skills, great mentorship.
00:23:55
And I'll pay back my loans.
00:23:57
And then I'll be so much more free financially to make different decisions, which is then the next job to say, all right, I really want more balance in my life.
00:24:04
I need more control over my time.
00:24:06
So that was, I speak very personally because I was in private practice for five years.
00:24:09
I really enjoyed it.
00:24:09
was tremendously fun, to be honest.
00:24:12
I was on my feet.
00:24:13
I was in court.
00:24:14
I was dealing with clients.
00:24:15
It was dynamic and incredibly intellectually stimulating.
00:24:18
I worked with extremely bright lawyers.
00:24:20
But at the end of five years, I was pretty burnt out and I was tired and I was sick of, I think my worst memory was it was like Monday of Thanksgiving.
00:24:29
And I was in a car just driving around Toronto, interviewing witnesses crying.
00:24:33
And I had to leave dinner with my family to be like, well, I have to go interview this witness.
00:24:38
And I had to go bother this poor person who's like themselves during Thanksgiving and be like, let's talk about that awful business dispute.
00:24:45
And can you please tell in excuse in detail?
00:24:47
And I remember just driving around thinking, I don't want to do this anymore.
00:24:49
It was fun.
00:24:50
It was fun and I really enjoyed it at some point and I don't like it anymore.
00:24:54
And then I thought, okay, now my matrix has changed.
00:24:58
I don't value, it doesn't matter so much that it's like always different.
00:25:01
I was so worried about being bored and just doing the same thing.
00:25:04
And trust me, in private practice and litigation, I absolutely never, ever, ever, ever, ever did the same thing.
00:25:09
Every single day was different.
00:25:11
I wasn't, so I was like, I actually really would love to do have some structure.
00:25:14
I would love to do the same thing every day.
00:25:15
I would love to know in three months what my day is like, because in litigation I could never predict.
00:25:20
I absolutely could never predict.
00:25:21
So I went the exact opposite.
00:25:23
I went to work at a regulator, which I had like complete control, really almost complete control over my time.
00:25:29
And that was what was most valuable at that time.
00:25:31
And then I did that for seven years and I said, actually, I think I'm ready for a little bit more diversity and a little bit more excitement.
00:25:36
And so then I ended up back in industry.
00:25:38
But that just goes to show your priorities may change over time and they can change.
00:25:42
And there's no judgment to say at one point in your life, you may prioritize making the most amount of money possible because you have to pay your bills.
00:25:50
That's life.
00:25:50
That's going to school and going to spending a lot of money on school.
00:25:55
And then at other times to say, no, I don't want, I will take a huge pay cut because in fact, what's more important to me is this.
00:26:01
opportunity to work at an off-for-profit where they don't pay well, but I will be providing legal services to an issue I really care about.
00:26:12
So I just think that's important is that what it is that you're valuing, what it is you're looking for may evolve over time, and that's life.
00:26:19
Yeah, I think that just to supplement what I said, and I think that is sort of what I was getting at, if not in a less, mine was a clunkier way of saying it.
00:26:28
But
00:26:30
that whole sort of thing of prioritizing what's important to you.
00:26:33
So like for me at that stage, what was important to me in finding an employer was as a shocker, I'm ***.
00:26:42
** * gay man, it was really important for me to find a place that I worked, that I felt comfortable at.
00:26:47
That was for me more important than whatever the bottom line was.
00:26:51
It was more important to me than
00:26:53
the area of law that I practice, because I'm sure most of you probably are like, I like everything.
00:26:59
And practice is so much different than law school, and it's hard to really know.
00:27:03
And so while you're going through this process, it is important to reflect on what is important to you, and then try to steer yourself in that direction as best you can.
00:27:16
Really?
00:27:18
Going back to your point, kind of everything that people prioritize, it's so individualistic to that person and it can change through life.
00:27:25
So, but it's definitely really refreshing to know that life tends to just work itself out.
00:27:32
So that's helpful.
00:27:33
I know some of us doing the two hour recruit right now probably feel like the ship is sinking a little bit.
00:27:39
So nice to know that there's still some hope.
00:27:42
Shifting gears a little bit, business law is an area of the law that's
00:27:48
constantly evolving with shifts in the economy, regulation and industry trends.
00:27:53
What are some changes that have had the biggest impact on your work?
00:27:56
And what do you think will shape the next few years of the industry?
00:28:02
Okay.
00:28:04
Well, actually, there's one, I wanted to mention one non-business, one change that's not business related that really
00:28:12
shaped my career was there was a Supreme Court of Canada decision by Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, who you may have heard of.
00:28:19
I don't really know what you kids learn these days.
00:28:23
But it meant that refugee hearings by refugee claimants who make their claim in Canada had to be made in person.
00:28:33
And this grew a whole new industry of hearings, appeals, judicial review,
00:28:41
And that led to the need for a ton more lawyers in the Department of Justice.
00:28:46
And I was part of that crew of, there was 20 or 30 lawyers who got hired all at once just because of this, that decision had such an impact.
00:28:56
So that was one major change that directed my career.
00:29:02
The other was the growing emphasis on
00:29:07
avoiding the devastation of money laundering and terrorist financing, and realizing that money laundering takes place in so many areas.
00:29:17
I don't know if anybody's taking any classes related to that, but, you know, the onion kind of got bigger.
00:29:23
At first it was just the banks, and then it was, you know, the real estate agents, the jewelers, the precious metals, the
00:29:31
money service businesses and so on.
00:29:32
So there was this greater recognition of the, what it, how the global, the global issue of money laundering and terrorist financing.
00:29:43
There's been the rise of the popularity of non-bank financial institutions, payments institutions, all those that didn't really exist before as bank credit union or bank and credit union.
00:29:54
And now there's so many options for investments and alternate investments and sending money and so on.
00:30:01
And then the last thing is, I think, is the growing concern with privacy and data protection.
00:30:08
I mean, Canada is so far behind the European Union, where they had the experience of the Second World War and, that these meticulous records were kept of people.
00:30:22
And of course, the Nazis got them and were able to, wreak havoc with having
00:30:28
this private information available in such a neat little form.
00:30:31
So the European Union is miles ahead of protecting private data and private information and the right to be forgotten.
00:30:39
There's so much more autonomy of people to not exist anywhere.
00:30:44
And that's the other thing that I think has really made a big change in the business world.
00:30:50
Yeah.
00:30:51
And did you want me to move on to like future changes or do you want to take that next?
00:30:57
Sure.
00:30:57
So what I think is probably going to make the biggest difference, the impacts that will have the greatest influence on the business world coming up are cryptocurrency.
00:31:09
Cryptocurrency is finding its way in the world, both as a currency and as an investment.
00:31:16
And the regulators have been dancing around it, threatening to regulate.
00:31:20
We're going to regulate, but I don't really think they know what they're going to regulate until cryptocurrency finds its place in the marketplace.
00:31:27
We don't really know yet.
00:31:29
So that's, I think, going to be opportunity.
00:31:32
You know, if you want to gain a specialty, maybe look something like that.
00:31:37
The other thing is online business regulation.
00:31:39
You know, our business rules, I think, are really designed for where's the consumer,
00:31:45
Where's the seller?
00:31:46
Where's the stuff being sold?
00:31:48
Let's look at that thing that's being sold, be it a car or whatever it is.
00:31:51
And there's so much more intangibles.
00:31:53
And so how are we going to protect consumers?
00:31:56
How are we going to punish, you know, wrongdoers?
00:32:01
What's going to be protected exactly?
00:32:03
So I think that that's going to be the biggest emerging area.
00:32:09
Do you want to go?
00:32:11
No.
00:32:11
Tell us those resonates, because I think we're very like adjacent and similar industries, certainly that like the management of what they call crypto asset trading platforms, like that was a major policy project I worked on when I was at CERO at IROP.
00:32:23
Look around.
00:32:23
Yeah, I know.
00:32:25
And it is a great burgeoning area.
00:32:27
I would say, though, there's a lot of
00:32:31
old concepts being made new.
00:32:34
Particularly in capital markets, sometimes it's the same old scam.
00:32:38
It's the same, it's wash trading, it's whatever the same old scam you learn of and all the wrongdoing, all the types of fraud, just repackaged in a different form.
00:32:46
But in the industry that I support and that I practice in, which is securities law, some of the biggest changes are really
00:32:55
It's called client-focused reforms.
00:32:57
It was a giant policy project of the securities commissions across the country, as well as at the time, the two self-regulatory organizations, which have since merged.
00:33:04
So at the time, it was IROC and the MFDA.
00:33:07
And this was a total rethinking of the way that investors interacted with investment dealers, mutual fund dealers.
00:33:14
So those are the intermediaries that sit between investors and capital markets.
00:33:18
And that includes the individuals, the advisors who give recommendations, who give advice about how you should invest your money, what mutual funds or what securities, what stocks and equities you should buy.
00:33:29
And as a result of this, I think it's starting to sort of seep into other product areas like insurance products, like segregated funds.
00:33:36
It's starting to infiltrate the way and directly influence the way that these industries are structured.
00:33:42
You're seeing a lot of consolidation, not just of the regulator, but also on the business side.
00:33:47
And really, it's about a lot of what you just mentioned, Alice.
00:33:50
We have to rethink the relationship between people giving advice and investors, because it was very traditional that it would be someone would sell you a mutual fund
00:33:59
And then thanks very much, like selling you an insurance policy, I'll never talk to you again.
00:34:03
Versus now where you as an individual investor on your phone during this call, you can open an account at any one of the online discount brokerages and you can just buy and sell your own.
00:34:14
You can buy a unit in a mutual fund, you can buy and sell securities.
00:34:20
Pretty much frictionless, right?
00:34:21
Like it's pretty much frictionless.
00:34:23
And so I think that evolution in my industry is tremendous.
00:34:27
There is both increased scrutiny and increased responsibility over the individuals giving advice, mixed with the rise of different types of products like cryptocurrencies, mixed with changing nature of advice, the fact that individuals can get their own advice, they can go on TikTok, they can go on Reddit, they can get unregistered people giving them advice, they can execute, they can access markets directly.
00:34:50
And there's also AI, and there's an AI element.
00:34:54
So I think certainly it's an exciting time to be in my industry because there's all these things, all of these influences that are really changing, in my view, the relationship between individual investors and how they make investment decisions.
00:35:09
And lastly, I mean,
00:35:11
Everybody now, your responsibility to save for your retirement is tremendously important, and it's really your responsibility.
00:35:17
It's been moved from a sort of a state responsibility to an individual responsibility.
00:35:21
So there's, on top of all that mix, there is this intense pressure to say, I better start saving.
00:35:27
or else.
00:35:27
I don't want to end up at the end of my career with no money.
00:35:29
I just think altogether, it makes for a really vibrant and interesting practice area, an area that is actually constantly changing, constantly new things.
00:35:38
That's not even to talk about the other things you mentioned, which is how to protect fraud, how to protect privacy, and all those other things that also really are in the mix.
00:35:46
Again, personally, in my practice, that's what I advise on, all of those areas.
00:35:50
It's certainly interesting from a practice area, but
00:35:54
from a business perspective, really a ripe area for a lot of regulatory scrutiny and a lot of regulatory evolution.
00:36:02
Yep.
00:36:03
Yeah, I don't really have anything to add.
00:36:06
Like I don't think I've been doing it long enough.
00:36:09
I'm not under any false illusion that I like know the way that market trends impact my practice.
00:36:16
Sort of simply like people are always looking to borrow money and there are always people who want to lend money.
00:36:20
There was some fear at the beginning of this year about
00:36:23
some of the cross-border work that we do because of the new American administration's approach to international trade.
00:36:33
But that didn't actually having much of an impact, at least not on our work.
00:36:38
But otherwise, I completely defer to this side of the table.
00:36:43
Well, thank you all.
00:36:46
It's really interesting to see kind of the market trends and how things have changed over time and how they're gonna continue to change.
00:36:52
And I guess the next question is, what do you think are the skills that have best served you in your career, kind of adapting to these changes?
00:36:59
And maybe if there are any skills that you had wished you began developing earlier in your career, maybe kind of looking back to when you were still in law school.
00:37:09
Maybe we could start with Sam?
00:37:11
Yeah, as a junior lawyer, so much of the skills that you build in law school are really applicable.
00:37:18
Not necessarily the substantive stuff that you learn here, but the tools that you're building through your substantive learning will be really applicable.
00:37:28
So things like balancing competing demands, managing stress, a heavy workload,
00:37:37
reading large volumes, really good attention to detail, like all of those things are completely transferable.
00:37:45
I feel like a lot of it, in my experience, has been learned on the job.
00:37:49
So like, do I wish I took this secured financing course that Queen's offers?
00:37:54
Sure.
00:37:55
But I think so much of it is learned when you're there from the lawyers teaching you.
00:38:02
you build a really great base in law school.
00:38:04
So don't feel like, I know people will often say, practice is so different than law or than law school.
00:38:09
And it, of course, is in so many ways, but you are building a lot of really, really useful skills right now.
00:38:15
Yeah.
00:38:16
Yeah, it's my response, very similar to what you're getting at, Sam, is that it's not like skills, not so much.
00:38:24
It's actually maybe personality or inner traits that you go in with, because you really don't go in with many skills, honestly.
00:38:33
The skills that served me well were just being outgoing and curious.
00:38:38
That served me well, just being outgoing and then
00:38:41
people remember you and you get more information and you get that feedback and affirmation.
00:38:46
That is a double-edged sword.
00:38:49
The other skill is being able to pretend until I could make it so.
00:38:55
I cannot tell you how many jobs I had.
00:38:58
I had no idea.
00:39:03
War story or no war story?
00:39:06
War story.
00:39:06
Yeah.
00:39:08
So I got hired into, so I had a great little gig at a foreign exchange company, in-house counsel and chief compliance officer three days a week.
00:39:16
I had three kids at home.
00:39:17
It was really great.
00:39:19
And then I got recruited by a small bank.
00:39:24
Anybody can see it in my LinkedIn, so it's not a secret, Jamison Bank, which was at a time when there was the sense that the banks had to, which shouldn't be just the main players, there should be some niche banks.
00:39:36
So Jameson was a foreign exchange company that got a banking license, much to their shotgun unpreparedness.
00:39:42
None of this that I know.
00:39:43
So they recruited me heavily, heavily, heavily.
00:39:46
And they needed a chief compliance officer and would, again, an in-house counsel that I said, I'm not going to bring my legal skills for you to use unless you give me that role.
00:39:57
So I was a little concerned about being, it was a big leap in going from doing
00:40:04
doing compliance for a foreign exchange company to doing it for a bank because there are extra layers of regulation, many, and I didn't know what they were.
00:40:14
So I was scared to death and basically got a kick in the *** from my husband who said, just, you know, you are crazy.
00:40:22
They are offering you this.
00:40:24
It's a big job, take it.
00:40:27
So I took it, scared to death, and the first day that I started,
00:40:33
is when I discovered, despite this heavy recruitment, several rounds of interviews and so on, that they were actually under, they were in a lot of trouble with OSFI.
00:40:44
They'd had a terrible review.
00:40:46
They were on special conditions, close watch.
00:40:49
They'd had to, their previous chief compliance officer had not left under the best conditions.
00:40:55
So, and, but they didn't tell me any of this, which I was really angry about, to be honest.
00:41:00
It seemed like a bait and switch.
00:41:02
So, that was, so not only coming into a job that I know nothing about, honestly, I was so scared to take, I knew nothing about, I find out Oscar wants to see me in two weeks, which I got 30 days.
00:41:16
with the action plan on how I was going to dig this bank out of their compliance issues.
00:41:20
Like so many, like page after page.
00:41:23
I got it afterwards, page after page of findings.
00:41:25
I'm like, yeah, this is relevant to me.
00:41:28
You know what I mean?
00:41:28
So yeah, to be honest, I almost, well, I went back to the recruit, the legal recruiter.
00:41:33
I was just not happy.
00:41:36
And I actually thought of quitting like I did.
00:41:39
I just thought, this is not what I bargained for.
00:41:41
I bargained to, yeah, I'm learning something new, but I didn't think to be under the microscope right away.
00:41:46
And then I think in a lot of us, anybody who's played sports for sure, you think that you can be the one that's going to make the change, right?
00:41:54
You're going to be the one.
00:41:55
You're going to dig them out of this hole.
00:41:57
And yeah, I just, like I buckled down and we got out of it and, you know, and they were subsequently bought and by a bigger player.
00:42:08
So obviously Jameson Bank became attractive again, not just because of me, sorry, I shouldn't make it sound that way, but
00:42:15
all to say that an important skill was to just believe in yourself and just make it seem like everything's fine.
00:42:24
You got it under control.
00:42:25
And you know that as a lawyer, you're so well prepared.
00:42:30
Like law school may seem so grueling to you right now and endless.
00:42:34
but it is giving you immense reserves of ability to learn a lot of information in a short amount of time and, you know, regurgitate it in a coherent way.
00:42:45
You know, you are just, you're developing this amazing skill set to just do just about anything in your life.
00:42:52
And so as long as you can kind of keep the surface looking unruffled, you will want, at one point, you'll know what you're doing.
00:42:58
You absolutely will know what you're doing.
00:43:00
So that was, I think, an important skill.
00:43:04
Things I wish I'd learned earlier, skills I'd developed earlier was, as I was saying, being outgoing was a bit double-edged.
00:43:13
I needed to learn to put some brakes on the utter expression of my inner personality and thoughts.
00:43:21
Nobody likes a smarty prance.
00:43:23
Nobody wants to know that you have the answer.
00:43:25
And like, I just, and I didn't, you know, I was young, I was very young when I went to law school.
00:43:29
I think I was 21 or 20.
00:43:33
I did the,
00:43:34
Two years.
00:43:36
So I was very young and I think, and immature and of course, thought I knew everything.
00:43:42
So I took that into my early career and a lot of my life, frankly, and it took a while for me to grow up.
00:43:50
I would say I was like 26, 27 before I started to smarten up and nobody wants to hear my opinion on that, honestly.
00:43:57
So that was, I had to learn diplomacy and restraint.
00:44:00
You don't want to be remembered for the wrong things.
00:44:04
I had to, I never really learned office politics, be honest, but I also didn't know there was such thing as office politics.
00:44:13
So, I mean, I don't know if you'll ever actually be able to put your fingers on the pulse.
00:44:16
I still don't, but at least I know there are things afoot around me that I may not see.
00:44:21
And so just be cognizant.
00:44:23
And finally, I would say like, having fun is important, even at work, but just know that people are watching you.
00:44:31
So,
00:44:34
Not a war story.
00:44:35
Yeah, obviously, I'll give the best war stories.
00:44:37
Yeah.
00:44:37
Okay, so this is something I wish I'd never done, okay?
00:44:42
I was articling, and so we had a downstairs, part of the articling students' jobs was to stock the beer fridge.
00:44:49
And then there was, I can't remember it was Thursday or Friday, but everybody would gather downstairs near the beer fridge, partners, lawyers, everybody.
00:44:56
So we'd all drink beer, okay, fine.
00:44:58
But I wanted to show them this cool trick, I can't remember what it's called,
00:45:02
But you punch a hole in the beer and it comes out really fast.
00:45:06
I don't remember how if it involved a tube or something, but I sort of forget the mechanics.
00:45:11
But anyways, I thought it was really cool because you could show them that how quickly you could drink.
00:45:16
Well, don't I really super regret doing that.
00:45:19
I was not hired back.
00:45:21
That might have been the reason, right?
00:45:23
Like, I just don't know.
00:45:24
But what a stupid thing to do, honestly.
00:45:26
Like, again, a skill or a thing that nobody needs to know.
00:45:30
Yeah, so that kind of like just exercising more restraint.
00:45:33
And this is something my mother would always very gently, you know, say, well, maybe you shouldn't have said that, dear.
00:45:40
Have you considered doing this, dear?
00:45:42
And mom, you're right.
00:45:45
Yeah, listen to your mom.
00:45:46
Listen to your mom.
00:45:47
Listen to your mom.
00:45:47
That's right.
00:45:48
She does know a thing or two.
00:45:49
Yeah.
00:45:52
Next week.
00:45:53
Get ready now.
00:45:59
Totally concur.
00:46:00
I totally agree.
00:46:01
You didn't do that.
00:46:02
I did not, but it is a hard push and pull to be able to feel like you can show your authentic self and also know that you're being monitored and you are being assessed.
00:46:11
And frankly, as a lawyer, your greatest skill is your judgment.
00:46:15
And so how are they assessing your ability to exercise good judgment?
00:46:18
Yes, in your ability to manage your time and to prioritize and how you treat anyone you work with at all levels, whether they're partners or they're more junior or whomever.
00:46:29
But it's also just other things.
00:46:31
And you are being assessed on that because again, as a lawyer, all you're doing is exercising judgment.
00:46:36
All you're doing is you got to know the law, you got to provide advice, but you are exercising judgment in terms of how you approach helping your clients or whoever you work with solve
00:46:45
or legal problems.
00:46:46
Important skills are definitely curiosity and genuine curiosity.
00:46:50
Not just I'm curious for a, like I want to get somewhere, I want to get a job or I want to work with you.
00:46:55
Like genuinely, like I'm just interested.
00:46:57
And I don't know what, like I don't care about this area of law otherwise, but I'm just genuinely interested.
00:47:01
Or with a client, I don't know anything about your area, your business.
00:47:04
I want to know everything about it because I'm genuinely curious.
00:47:06
Like that really
00:47:08
really, really resonates with clients when you show and demonstrate genuine interest in their problems and in their work and their life.
00:47:16
Certainly communicating, and I think all three of us have said this, your job is to know your audience.
00:47:24
And Sam, I feel like being a performer, like you know this especially well, know your audience and who you're communicating, because sometimes it isn't always sophisticated.
00:47:31
A lot of times it is.
00:47:33
But even I've had to appear before judges and they will tell, they will say,
00:47:37
Counsel, tell it to me like I'm a six-year-old.
00:47:40
I don't want to hear any big words.
00:47:42
Don't tell me any case law.
00:47:43
Just tell it to me like I'm a six-year-old.
00:47:45
So even in front of what you would perceive or you would expect to be a sophisticated audience, you may be forced to adjust your manner of communication to really be able to
00:47:54
communicate very complex concepts succinctly, clearly, and in a manner that your audience understands.
00:47:59
It doesn't matter if you're a genius and you know, and you know the 5 million cases, you know the whole evolution, who cares?
00:48:05
Whoever is asking you for a legal opinion, they're usually asking for a reason.
00:48:08
And it's generally not because they're interested in that background.
00:48:11
They have a legal problem and they need your help with it, certainly in private practice or in in-house.
00:48:17
And really, I think one thing I wish I did better or learned to skill better is say no.
00:48:23
It's really hard.
00:48:24
It's really hard when you're, it's very, very, very difficult.
00:48:26
I don't know that I would have been because that takes professional confidence.
00:48:29
But being able to say no, it sometimes helps you.
00:48:32
Because if you say yes to everything, it can diminish the quality of your work.
00:48:35
You could be taking on more than you expect.
00:48:37
You could be stretching yourself in ways that you even instinctually know is not right.
00:48:41
And really, you do need to say no sometimes.
00:48:43
And that's the responsible thing to do.
00:48:46
And also like a little bit of resilience, you know, knowing, and that is a little bit of a skill you just have to earn over time to learn that
00:48:54
Whatever happens, things don't go according to plan.
00:48:56
You just pick yourself up and keep going.
00:48:59
I definitely think part of being a lawyer is getting very, and to your point, it is a bit of Alice, you're like faking it till you make it.
00:49:06
Like just keep, it is about getting really accustomed to getting something on your desk and being like, I have no idea what this is.
00:49:12
And it's not that ever changes.
00:49:14
I've been practicing for over like decade and like it still happens where I'll be like, well, I literally have nowhere, I don't even know where to begin.
00:49:20
Like I am at the, I'm going to Google this stage.
00:49:23
Really that
00:49:23
feeling of like what possible regulatory framework or what case law would apply to this.
00:49:29
It's just you get more familiar with that feeling.
00:49:31
And it's a really hard feeling coming out of law school where you kind of feel like there is an answer or there's like, I got to flag these issues in a fact scenario.
00:49:39
And law to me, over in my years of practice, has just been day after day, job after job, getting something where I'm like, I don't even know where to begin.
00:49:47
I have no idea.
00:49:48
I don't know who to talk to.
00:49:49
I don't know what area of law this is in.
00:49:51
That's your inside voice, right?
00:49:53
Yeah, inside.
00:49:54
But being like, but also I think over time, developing confidence to say, okay, I don't know, but like I'm going to figure this out.
00:50:00
Yeah.
00:50:00
And you do, and you always do.
00:50:02
And to your point, Alex, you're developing superb skills and a baseline to say like, I've been thrown, a million things have been thrown at me and I've sorted it out.
00:50:10
I've approached, I've started a class being like, what is this professor talking about?
00:50:15
I have no idea.
00:50:16
And at the end of it, you can complete an exam and you can generally recite some important facts.
00:50:20
So having that confidence to know you'll figure it out, I think is pretty important.
00:50:25
I think too, just like on that point, utilizing
00:50:30
every resource available to you before.
00:50:32
So as a junior lawyer, often you're reporting to a senior associate, a partner, who in my experience have generally been happy to receive questions so long as all of your resources have been sort of expensed before doing that.
00:50:45
And it's so true that so often I'm every day going, yep, yep, about things that I've absolutely no idea about, but I'm sure there's somebody else who does.
00:50:57
or electronic resources that are available to you.
00:51:00
And also that being flexible in, you'll all know, so when you're writing your exams, different profs have different expectations.
00:51:07
They have different ways they like their responses written.
00:51:09
They have different things that they're looking for.
00:51:11
And that will be true of clients and senior lawyers that you're working for.
00:51:14
And sort of like being adaptable to know who wants what from you is also really useful, I think.
00:51:20
Yeah.
00:51:23
I heard a lot of different skills.
00:51:24
We've got resilience.
00:51:26
I feel like the one that resonated the most with me was probably the stress management one.
00:51:30
I think all three of you touched on that.
00:51:32
I know that that's really hard to do at kind of any phase of your career.
00:51:37
So nice to hear that that's normalized.
00:51:42
I think we have time for one more quick question before opening it up to Q&A.
00:51:47
What would you say is the most rewarding part of your career?
00:51:56
Atlas again.
00:51:56
Sure, yeah.
00:51:58
Yeah, that's I'm glad you skipped the other question because the most challenging part of my career is not probably something you want to hear about as young lawyers.
00:52:04
So that's good call.
00:52:09
Yes, in the interest of time, no, no, it's great.
00:52:12
I'd say finally ticking over into an area where I felt I had some some
00:52:19
dominance, knowledge, confidence, finally finding that niche.
00:52:24
Like you do find your niche over time.
00:52:27
And I know I've talked about floating along, but you will find your place and you know, you know it when you know it.
00:52:33
And just finally for me was finding that area where I knew I was performing at my peak.
00:52:39
I had something to offer finally to an employer and others.
00:52:42
I knew that I was really good at what I do.
00:52:45
I'm good at what I do.
00:52:47
And just that's such a, it's such a great feeling.
00:52:49
It makes your career so rewarding and you really get to flex yourself, flex your skills, be creative, you know, think outside the box.
00:53:00
It's just, it's a wonderful feeling when you do find, you do find your right place.
00:53:05
Yeah, that was year 20.
00:53:08
Yeah.
00:53:11
Yeah, sure.
00:53:12
I totally concur.
00:53:13
I feel that way.
00:53:14
I'm not fully in like feeling like I know everything, but I do feel like I have an area.
00:53:19
I do think it sounds so trite, like, oh, helping people.
00:53:22
But genuinely, as a lawyer, you are in private practice or in-house, in my experience, at a regulator, being with someone who is trying to understand what is often, and this is not just in securities law, I think this applies in many different areas of law.
00:53:36
Something that is
00:53:37
dense and opaque and complex and hard to understand.
00:53:41
And being that person where someone's like, just please decode it.
00:53:43
I don't understand.
00:53:45
And to be able to provide that, it's so rewarding.
00:53:48
It's such a nice feeling to be like, you're a trusted advisor.
00:53:51
I trust your judgment.
00:53:52
I also trust you to communicate, again, back to the point about communication, communicate this in a way that I understand, but also is relevant to me, not just communicating for the purposes of communicating, but pick up the things about this really dense, opaque area of law that is relevant to the audience.
00:54:06
It's really rewarding.
00:54:07
It's such a nice feeling to say like, I am not just understanding this really complex area of law, but like in a way that's useful, that is actually applied in, and again, to my point about why I like practicing in business law in a way that I see like, oh, this totally influenced the way you offer this product or the way you instruct advisors, the way they give advice, all of that.
00:54:24
Like it's so again, really tangible.
00:54:27
I find that really, really validating.
00:54:29
And I also think
00:54:31
Another great part is just being part of the club that is the bar is really great.
00:54:35
Like you're getting there.
00:54:37
And when you're called to the bar, it's not just an incredible personal accomplishment, but it's also like, welcome to the club.
00:54:42
We're all here.
00:54:43
We're all rooting for you.
00:54:45
And you come in a long line of other senior lawyers who have rooted for me and have supported me.
00:54:49
And it's a really nice place, I think, generally a place and a club to be part of.
00:54:55
I find the most rewarding thing about the job
00:54:59
So my previous career, sort of like discipline and hard work did not equal success.
00:55:06
So much of, and there are aspects of this in this career too, but so much about that career was in the hands of other people.
00:55:13
And a lot of it was really sort of arbitrary.
00:55:16
And so I find it really rewarding that
00:55:19
I know that, and of course there can be hiccups along the way, and it doesn't always feel like you're constantly climbing.
00:55:25
But if I work hard, I will be building my skills, which will make me a better lawyer, which will lead me to being successful in this profession.
00:55:32
And I find just sort of that as a concept really rewarding.
00:55:36
I found that same thing rewarding about just like learning at law school.
00:55:40
I also find the mentorship piece really rewarding.
00:55:45
I am where I am because of mentorship.
00:55:47
It was really important to me when I was in law school and a student.
00:55:52
And so sort of recruitment and mentorship, I think, completely shapes, or sorry, the young, the incoming junior talent completely shapes the trajectory of the firm.
00:56:06
And so I think it's really important.
00:56:08
And our firm has a huge sort of
00:56:13
puts a huge impetus on that.
00:56:14
And I find it really rewarding to work with students.
00:56:19
And I find, yeah, that's all.