Michael Rosenberg

How do you become the clerk for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin? An undergraduate degree from Harvard University, a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge in the U.K., and coming top in your class after first year at the University of Toronto law school, certainly help. Add to that a mother who is a law professor and winning the 2009 Harvey Strosberg prize for an essay on class action lawsuits, and you would probably be a shoo-in. 

 

Secondments have benefits both for associates’ careers and for relationships between the lawyer’s firm and its clients.

When Sylvia De Angelis put up her hand and spoke out at a meeting with the managing partner of her law firm, she had no idea where it would take her career. At the time, she was a fourth-year associate in the Calgary office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, and was the only one at the meeting willing to say why some associates were less than thrilled with their experience at the firm.