For Andrea St. Bernard, law has always been a passion, as has competitive sports. But rather than choose between the two, she’s managed to find room for both in her life — although it’s a tricky balance. St. Bernard is an associate at McMillan LLP in Toronto as well as a third-degree black belt in taekwondo who has qualified to represent her native Grenada at this summer’s London 2012 Olympic Games.

Growing up, she would watch the Olympics with her family and imagine being there — doing whatever sport she happened to be doing at the time. But she didn’t start taekwondo because she saw it as an avenue to the Olympics. At some point along the way, the Olympics became a goal within reach.

But St. Bernard also had a passion for the law. Before she went to law school, friends who she hadn’t seen in years would ask her when she was going to do “the whole law thing.” After attending Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., on a volleyball scholarship, she pursued business law at the University of Toronto. During her time at U of T, St. Bernard discovered martial arts — about eight months before starting law school. “I’ve always been interested in martial arts, but hadn’t found the opportunity or right coach and situation,” she tells Canadian Lawyer, admitting she was a relatively latecomer to the sport. “I was comfortably ready to move on from volleyball having done it for many years and quite possibly reached the height of my volleyball career.”

With volleyball, her options were limited: She could either play for the national team or pursue a career in Europe, where the sport is more popular. But volleyball is also a team sport that requires a commitment to scheduling, which wasn’t something St. Bernard could do through law school. She met a taekwondo coach through family and tried out a class at Young Choung Taekwondo Academy in Toronto. During her first class, someone held a target for her and told her to kick it. She started kicking, and hasn’t stopped.

On a physical level, taekwondo requires strength, balance, and speed. But it also requires mental focus and discipline, and helps to build confidence. “I fell in love with the sport,” says St. Bernard.

At the time, the club was home to several members of Canada’s national taekwondo team, so from the start, she could take high-level classes. Even though she didn’t have a background in the sport, with her volleyball experience, she was athletic enough to move with the class. “It was kick or get kicked, [and] I was getting kicked a lot. Eventually you kick back or you go home. I kept going,” she says.

It’s something she has managed to fit into an unorthodox schedule, although it can be tough. She had a major competition the weekend before her first law school exam. “It was crazy. Having gone through university as a varsity athlete and getting all the privileges of a varsity athlete, this was different. I was a complete beginner, and I was going to be late for exams because I was going to some competition.”

She joined McMillan as a summer student and in her interview  was honest that competitive taekwondo was something she was going to pursue alongside law. Fortunately, the firm thought it was “awesome,” she says, even though that was not everyone’s initial reaction (generally more along the lines of, “When are you going to focus on what you should really be doing?”). The firm even extended her articling by three weeks so she could compete. “McMillan gave me the opportunity,” said St. Bernard. “I tend to work hard at everything I do, so as long as the work was good and the hours were there, they had no problem with me pursuing [taekwondo].”

St. Bernard has been with the firm since 2006 when she was called to the bar. As a member of the debt products group, she acts for lenders and borrowers in a variety of debt financing transactions, from corporate lending to debtor-in-possession financing. She also completed a secondment at the Ontario Securities Commission’s corporate finance branch during her articles with the firm.

During law school and for the first five years of her practice, St. Bernard would work during the day and train at night. “There were many nights where I was in the midst of a deal where work had to be done but I had a competition coming up and I had to train,” she says. “So there’s a constant pull.” But she’s always participated in some sort of competitive activity, so she makes it work. “There are a few 24-hour gyms in Toronto, so I do crazy things at crazy hours, I go with the flow a lot,” she says. “I do have to and need the benefit of the unit to be able to spar and do technical training, so I try to commit to regular evening classes at Young Choung,”  which  means sometimes heading back to the office late at night after a training session.

Now that she’s chasing the Olympics, St. Bernard has taken time off from law to focus on training (from two to eight hours a day). And while Toronto is still an important hub, she’s also training in Grenada and Cuba.

Taekwondo is quite new to the Olympics, and only 16 athletes compete in each of the four female divisions. She will compete in the under-67 kilograms sparring division. It’s her “last hurrah” at this competitive level, she says, and afterward plans to go back to the law and take it from there. “I’m enjoying the full-time athlete life but the grass is always greener,” she laughs. “I enjoy the practice of law and want to return to the practice of law.”

St. Bernard enjoys the nature of banking work, which she admits sounds odd to most people. “But you find your niche. There are a lot of negative or tough things that come with it — it is a tough profession [but] I enjoy the challenge.” It also involves both teamwork and independent work — much like the sport of taekwondo. “It doesn’t keep me in any type of box. . . . I’m always doing something different. I really enjoy the feeling of having accomplished something that seemed impossible,” she says of her law career — a statement that could equally apply to martial arts.

The greatest challenge of her job, she says, is finding work-life balance. “In more positive, lucrative economic times, it’s hard to stop and enjoy life and not just get sucked into the flow,” she points out. “Myself and many lawyers tend to have the type of personality to try to do more and more and more. The challenge is to slow down sometimes and not try to conquer the world every day.”

Perhaps not every day, but this summer in London, St. Bernard will indeed set out to conquer the world.

For anyone who loves Canada’s national sport, it’s a dream job, and for Michael Bruni, the newly appointed chairman of Hockey Canada, it’s possibly the best sports-related job in Canada, or even the world. “It’s a privilege, and I take it as a privilege,” he says. “And it’s a real challenge, too.”

But challenge, it seems, is what drives Bruni. Having spent much of his career in the oil and gas industry, he attributes his career success to a long history of volunteering. “One thing that has contributed to my experience and abilities more than anything — even my workplace — has been my volunteer life, without question,” he says. Based in Calgary, Bruni started volunteering with minor hockey associations, working his way up through the provincial scene to head Hockey Alberta, to eventually become vice chairman at large and executive vice chairman of Hockey Canada. He was named chairman of the board in June 2011.

Hockey Canada is the national body that oversees pretty much anything hockey-related in the country. It oversees minor and Junior A hockey, and its membership includes 13 provincial sports organizations. It’s also a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation, so it’s responsible for any teams that compete in international competitions, from the Olympics to world championships. The Canadian Hockey League is a member, although Hockey Canada does not oversee it. As part of his role, Bruni works closely with Hockey Canada’s president and chief executive officer, Bob Nicholson, who is Canada’s face of hockey. Nicholson runs the not-for-profit organization, which has in excess of 100 employees and a budget in the millions of dollars.

When Bruni took on the role of chairman, he coined the phrase, “staying relevant with the courage to change,” which has become his mandate at Hockey Canada. Change is not easy for a lot of people, he says. “I’m looking at change in the game — change in head hits, in violence. It is a learning experience on change management.”

Ultimately, his vision is about doing what’s best for kids, about creating the most opportunities for them. One issue, which has been making headlines in the mainstream media for some time now, is conduct on and off the ice. In his address to board members when he took on his new role, Bruni wrote: “My constant message will be very succinct and clear. Hockey Canada stands for no fighting and zero tolerance for violence in the game.” This means no head hits, regardless of the intent, and no to any grey areas. “The tipping point has arrived and pushed us to a crisis with concussions and injuries in the game. We have the ability and, quite frankly, the obligation to engage attitudinal change.”

Bruni says he’s also working toward a much better governance structure. “I oversee a board of 37 people, which is too large and we’re working on reducing that,” he says.

What Bruni brings to Hockey Canada is not only his legal background, but also a technical background, and he believes the two combined skill sets allow him to bring something different to the table. Before he became a lawyer, Bruni was an engineer with a geological sciences degree earned at Queen’s University in 1974, and experience as a geological engineer for various companies, including Falconbridge Ltd., Getty Mining International Inc., and the Nova Scotia Department of Mines. He then studied law at Dalhousie University, where he met his wife Janice. “She’s the real lawyer in the family,” he jokes. “She got me through law school.” They got married, moved to Calgary, and had four children — two of whom are currently attending law school. When he talks about his wife, it’s clear he values her advice and “unbelievable” support throughout the years.

At the start of his law career, Bruni articled for Atkinson McMahon (now Field LLP) in Calgary, and in 1978 was called to the bar in Alberta. When a position came up with the Energy Resources Conservation Board in 1980, he saw an opportunity to use not only his legal background but also his

engineering experience, and get into technical matters from a strategic, legal, and regulatory perspective.

Bruni was appointed general counsel of the ERCB in his first year. “It was an opportunity for me to head up the legal area there as general counsel at a very young age,” he says. “I basically ran a mini law firm internally.” He later became executive manager of the organization’s law branch, and served in both positions until January 2004. He acted as counsel on major hearings and inquiries, appearing before the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, and National Energy Board.

He also headed up a team of lawyers. “One of the things I really tried to do — and it was a challenge — was to try to get lawyers to look at things more pragmatically, to look at the bigger picture and to give advice to get to solutions. I’m not one for saying, ‘we’re here for billable hours.’ The service is to try and get it done with diligence, and that was a challenge when I took over operations.”

Bruni also helped set up the new Alberta Utilities Commission and led a realignment of the ERCB. In 2008, he was appointed an ERCB board member by the Alberta cabinet, and assumed the position of special adviser to the chairman of the ERCB in 2010.

During this time, Bruni kept up his volunteer work and stayed highly involved in the legal world. In the 1980s, he helped initiate the Association of General Counsel of Alberta, and was a member of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and the Canadian Petroleum Law Foundation. He’s currently a member of the Canadian Bar Association, the Calgary Bar Association, and the Law Society of Alberta. He’s also managed to find time to lecture at the University of Calgary and participate in forums on energy regulation. “I’ve been able to learn a lot about governance, about organizational capacity, organizational structure, what kind of people you want on a team to get things done,” he says.

Bruni is no stranger to change management. “I like to see the evolution of change.” At this level, he says, imparting change becomes more difficult.

When Riccardo Trecroce went in-house for the first time, he didn’t expect to become chief executive officer — a role that prepared him for his current job at one of the world’s most diversified automotive suppliers.

Trecroce, now vice president and general counsel for North America with Magna International Inc. in Aurora, Ont., which designs, develops, and manufactures automotive systems, learned throughout his career how to negotiate conflict and work with teams from other parts of the world.

When he took on his previous job as general counsel at Patheon Inc. in 2000, the Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturer was acquiring plants at the rate of almost one per year in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. But when the company acquired a major competitor, it took on a lot of debt; then things didn’t go as planned. There were also some unexpected management changes, leaving the company without a CEO at a critical time, so the board of directors asked Trecroce to step in as interim CEO.

Over 18 months, Trecroce led a reorganization and refinancing of Patheon. But in 2008, he decided it made sense to move on when the company looked for a CEO, and for the first time in his life he found himself unemployed. He considered his options: move back into private practice or set up his own firm.

It wasn’t long, however, before another opportunity came his way to join Magna as vice president and general counsel for North America, with responsibility for South America and Asia. His interest was piqued: Magna is a global company with 275 manufacturing plants and 84 product development, engineering, and sales centres in 26 countries on five continents. Of its 104,000 employees, Magna has about 40 lawyers around the world; some work within corporate offices, and some work within operating groups aligned to specializations. “For a global company like Magna, you need to be both global and local,” says Trecroce. “You need to have global policies and procedures and cultural values that apply throughout the organization, but they need to be adapted to the local rules, laws, cultural practices, and norms.”

He believes the best way to do that is to work with highly experienced lawyers in other countries who not only speak the language, but be an ambassador between the corporate office and operating groups that are several thousand miles away.

An average day for Trecroce could involve developing policies and procedures, hiring lawyers in other parts of the world, managing a staff of about 20 at the corporate office, and providing advice to executives. He also acts as a sounding board for colleagues in Mexico, South America, and China. “Finding ways for all of us to communicate together effectively is a big challenge,” he says. If you have a conference call at 10 a.m. in Toronto, for example, it’s 10 p.m. in China.

Another challenge is that a policy or procedure that makes sense from a North American perspective often requires a fair amount of adaptation as it’s rolled out into Europe, South America, and Asia. “Rules are different — privacy laws or employment law matters or other laws you’re not necessarily aware of, or even cultural practices,” says Trecroce.

Sometimes, when the corporate office sends out a draft policy, they find out it’s not permitted by virtue of a particular privacy directive from the European Union or an employment law in China. The exercise then becomes about finding a balance and ensuring local autonomy and respect for cultural and legal differences.

“They’re 5,000 miles away and they need to do what they need to do on their own for the most part,” says Trecroce. “It’s impossible to micromanage by telephone and e-mail across thousands of miles, so the key is to find the right people, make sure they’re highly qualified, highly ethical, and independent minded — able to work very much independently but know when to come back for support.” A specific area of focus for Trecroce is business ethics. “In China or other parts of Asia they may have a different approach to gift-giving, and one of my colleagues is developing a guideline to help our business people understand what is appropriate from our code of conduct in the context of gift-giving in countries where the cultural norms are different,” says Trecroce. “How do we ensure that we’re being culturally sensitive but at the same time ensuring we’re not perceived to be manipulating the decision-makers of a customer, supplier, or government official.”

Trecroce earned his law degree from McGill University in Montreal, and went on to get a bachelor’s degree in international relations at Concordia University. Originally, he thought he wanted to be a litigation lawyer. In 1981, he moved to Alberta to article with Edmonton-based Parlee McLaws LLP and practised there for three years. During that time, he made a discovery: as he was working on a file that had dragged on for 14 years, he wondered why someone hadn’t already resolved the dispute. “I realized I wasn’t well suited for litigation and litigation wasn’t well suited for me because I didn’t enjoy the adversarial process,” says Trecroce. “I learned  I was more of a dispute-resolution person.” He moved into the corporate department, where he found resolutions to standing issues.

At that point, he decided to move to Toronto and joined Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP for about 15 years, mostly doing corporate and M&A work. At FMC, he had the opportunity to interact with general counsel outside Canada, since many of his clients were international. In 2000, he moved in-house for the first time as general counsel with Patheon.

“I was their first lawyer,” says Trecroce. “I got to establish a law department — they didn’t even have a filing system when I arrived. It was very different from being in a big downtown law firm where people deliver coffee in nice china to working at a plant. Our corporate offices at the time were right beside the plant and it was roll-up-your-sleeves and start building a department.”

The experience at Patheon building a law department from scratch to nine lawyers in the Americas and Europe, and then moving on to become CEO — suited his personality far more than litigation.

At Magna, his job is focused on helping colleagues work through business issues, and that’s what he enjoys doing. “I’m talking to people around the world all the time,” says Trecroce. “It’s intellectually stimulating, and every day is different from the other.”