“On my first day of law school, I took a tour of the faculty and the upper year student leading the tour (Brad) told us that the inscription above the west entrance to NCDH, ‘Audi Alterum Partem’ meant spare parts for Audi’s! Of course, I soon learnt the importance of “letting the other side be heard.” Although I do not practice law, my legal training, including this important maxim, has framed the way I think and approach everyday business issues. In particular, I have been able to develop my skills relating to negotiations and consensus building by trying to always understand and take into account the position and views of the person that I am interacting with. ”
– Tony Fata, BCL’90, LLB’90, Faculty Advisory Board Chair, President Sager Food Nutrition
“Making me feel like I belong in any environment where there is a problem to be assessed. Especially helpful when you don’t feel like you belong for social/ diversity reasons.”
– Amee Sandhu, LLB’98
“Game the hockey pool rules”
– McShane Jones, BA’92, LLB’99 , MBA’99, Barsalou Lawson Rheault
” It was not obvious to me in law school that there is such a great demand in the charitable sector for volunteer board members who are lawyers and have governance knowledge. Some of my volunteer roles as Director and Chair of the Board (Ronald MacDonald House BC and viaSport BC) proved to be among the most satisfying things I have done.”
– Jon Festinger, BCL/LLB’80
” I’m a wiz at trivia contests where the subject is oblique views.”
– Stephen Fisher, BA’68, BCL’72, LLB’75, CBIS(MIS)’95
“J’ai fait partie du Service diplomatique pendant 35 ans, dont 28 hors du Canada et 17 comme ambassadeur. Les connaissances acquises et les habitudes développées pendant mes études de droit ont été mises à profit tout au long de ces 35 ans (analyses; négociations; défense des intérêts du Canada; …). Y compris lors de deux affectations à Ottawa, à la direction des Consultations juridiques et comme Directeur pour le Droit économique et les Traités.”
– Jean-Paul Hubert, BCL’66
“My law degrees, especially my civil law degree, have been so useful in understanding the societal structures and history of other countries. After all, Napoleon, who introduced the civil code in France, conquered most of Europe, and then European countries colonized much of the rest of the world. The code was ‘exported’ during Napoleon’s conquests and European colonization.”
– Sonia Struthers, BCL’87, LLB’87
Co-Leader, ESG & Sustainability, Partner, Business, McCarthy Tétrault LLP
“During my four years in law school, I had the opportunity to hone my reading, writing and analytical skills. Even if I had not been fortunate enough to practice law, my legal education would have served me well in any capacity.”
– Katherine Britt, BCL’92, LLB’92, Legal Counsel – Trademark Agent, Reitman’s
“My law degree from McGill University provided me with the platform to enjoy a challenging and rewarding career as a corporate, M&A lawyer at the Canadian law firm Ogilvy Renault. It is my belief that the training at our great law school, also facilitated my taking a leadership role in our firm, leading to our merger with Norton Rose Fulbright. I became Global Chair, and closely thereafter, I was invited by the Dean of our law school to Chair the Faculty Advisory Board. The Dean and I restructured the FAB to a more international Board, reflecting the international diversity of our Alma Mater. Today in my second career, I sit on various boards, not forgetting the training in corporate law I received at our Law Faculty. I’m very proud of our McGill Law Faculty.”
– Norman Steinberg, Ad.E, BSc’71, LLB’75, Vice-Chair BFL CANADA Risk and Insurance Services Inc.
“It has provided me with lenses to interpret social, economic and political events, around me. For sure, law does not explain everything, but it provides a framework of what could be or should be, and one can complete it with insights from other disciplines.”
– Professor François Crépeau, BCL/LLB’82
“My year as postgrad (LLM) at McGill has given me an enormous experience in working in foreign country, with students from all over the world and (as a European trained law student) diving deep into a new legal system. I still remember returning to Europe with a much more open mind especially when working on EU legal and political matters.”
– Thomas Bloink, LLM’92
“I’ve been involved in a number of start-ups, and my McGill law degrees proved invaluable in giving me the skill sets necessary to play a vital role in those enterprises.”
– Robert Labbe, BCL/LLB’82
“It changes the way you think, the actual mechanisms of thinking, and of writing. After law school I worked a while as a journalist, my law degree was very useful in understanding and telling the news in a concise and precise way. Plus I met my best friends there, that was extremely useful!”
– Maude Perras, BCL/LLB’05, Cert Prof Writ Eng’15
“In my social, personal and family life, breaking down complex situations into manageable parts. And strategically sequencing next steps.”
– Danièle MacKinnon, BCL/LLB’94, Director, Bequests and Planned Gifts McGill
“In June 1974, after graduation at McGill I joined TOTAL Compagnie Française des Pétroles, following a few months with a lawyer office in Paris. In TOTAL I joined the legal department of the exploration-production division where I started to learn about the oil and gas industry, a rather technical field, and fascinating. During this time I was sent several times to help the operations with negotiations, particularly in Indonesia (negotiating with Pertamina and contractors) and Singapore, in Myanmar, Japan, Peru and Pakistan. At the end of 1976 I was sent to Japan to also learn and practice trading, my superiors wanted to enlarge my field of activities. The reputation of McGill helped me a lot, and the knowledge of common law, I suppose also because most of the other companies I had to deal and negotiate with were American, or English. On the side of the companies we negotiated with I feel they also appreciated to negotiate with somebody having experience, even only at university, of common law, so different from French law. Therefore I may say that the McGill degrees were extremely useful and important to me, and also afterwards during my whole career.”
– Hubert de Mestier du Bourg, LLM’70, DCL’74
“I have become more vigilant that, am able to decipher to know when a person has fraudulent mindset. Adherence to societal laws is critical for the development of the state and my knowledge in the law has guided accordingly.”
– Mariam Aidoo, LLM’22
“As someone who was involved in governance through the Law Students Association, culminating in becoming President, my law degree really helped me learn how to get things done. Balancing the interests of a diverse student body, the Faculty, the University and the legal community was not always an easy task, but learning how to navigate all that to help come to some sort of resolution to an issue, or actually accomplish a positive goal, was something I learned at law school.”
– Allen Mendelsohn, BA’91, MBA’93, BCL/LLB’01, LLM’11
” I was not expecting by doing my LLM in air and space law that I would visit so many countries for my work and also that I would welcome so many presidents of States, prime ministers, foreign ministers. Indeed, by being in charge of the external affairs of the airport of Geneva, we are welcoming more than 4000 diplomatics delegations every year as Geneva is the host city of many international organisations, ONG and international conferences.”
– Gaël Poget, LLM’04, Switzerland
“After many years you will come to realize that the study and practice of law is really the study of people and behavior. If you stick around long enough you will come to understand people and their behavior and how to represent your clients interests. You cannot learn that in the first few years.”
– Allan Stein, BCL’76,LLB’77
“It laid the foundation for my career, e.g. enabling me to take the bar and be recruited by a top-tier law firm, preparing me well in many areas to become a trusted advisor and thought partner for business executives.”
– Tianfu Liu, LLM’02, VP, Strategic Business Development, Asia Pacific & Chief Counsel, Asia Pacific, Cabot Corporation
“It enhanced my ability to think logically (most of the time).”
– Jim Peacock, BA’76 ,BCL’79, LLB’80
“A law degree helped me stand out. I honestly did not appreciate until after I started practicing law how few lawyers there actually are. Everyone in my undergraduate program seemed to want to become a lawyer, so I had this assumption that there were a lot out there. But as I have found, there are lots of accountants, lots of bankers, and lots of consultants…. but not many lawyers!”
– Michael Otto, BA’06, BCL/LLB’11, Partner, Loopstra Nixon LLP
“I have opted to pursue a career in business as opposed to law and the analytic learning in obtaining a law degree has been extremely helpful in my business career.”
– Michael Cytrynbaum, BA’62, BCL’65
“I practised law for 37 years as a result of two McGill law degrees until my retirement in 2017. The non-obvious benefit does not relate to the degrees but in the analysis my legal education provided. As I also have an engineering degree, I was blessed with an education that taught me to address issues from two different perspectives.”
– Sheldon Burshtein, BEng’74, BCL’77, LLB’78
“I learned how to think about the law – not to memorize the law. This is very helpful in immigration law due to constant changes.”
– Viviane Albuquerque, Esq., BCL/LLB’15, Avocate (Québec), Barrister & Solicitor (Ontario), Attorney-At-Law (New York)
“Our legal system embodies the fundamental principles of dispute resolution and problem-solving. Studying law enabled to me to appreciate why and use this understanding in my work as an executive team advisor.”
– Jacques Neatby, BCL’92, LLB’92
“My law degree helped refine my analytical skills, allowed for deeper strategic thinking, improved communication skills, and McGill also increased my ability to weave in policy considerations into a host of other complex issues. ”
– Eric St-Pierre, BCL/LLB’10
“My law degree encouraged me to (keep) asking questions and not settle for the obvious answer.”
– John Lofranco, BCL/LLB’10
“If I may paraphrase the Bible, it appears that McGill education ‘moves in mysterious ways.’ My doctorate in comparative law enabled me to return from Canada to my homeland Slovenia, which in the meantime became an independent country. In the years to follow, I had a privilege and honor to work as a member of the Board of the leading Slovenian reinsurance company, as well as a Secretary-General of Comité Maritime International, Minister of Transportation and Vice-President of the Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia. Finally, I decided to devote myself entirely to academia, doing research, writing and lecturing at the University of Ljubljana and the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta.
McGill helped me tremendously to understand the importance of holistic, international and interdisciplinary approach. Because of my experience at McGill Law Faculty, Montreal, Quebec and Canada, I believe even more enthusiastically in the rule of law, ethics, equality, diversity, and inclusion.”
– Marko Pavliha, DCL’92
“My McGill law degree has served as an all-purpose problem solving education.”
– Craig Shepherd, LLB’97
“I have never practiced law as such, I mean as barrister or sollicitor, nor as judge or public attorney, but my law degree (not only my McGill LLM, also my previous Belgian degree as Licenciate) was particularly useful to me when I became a law researcher and a law lecturer in Heidelberg, Germany (1979-1987, Max Planck Institute and American University), when I wrote my Ph.D. with as subject “comparative constitutional law, Belgian and Canadian federalism”, when I joined the diplomatic service, knowledge of international law was needed in the selection process, when I was in the diplomatic service: first as Belgium’s legal counsel to the United Nations, New York (1994-1996) and second somewhat later as director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Law desk (2000-2003). And even later as an ambassador when legal issues were discussed amongst the EU colleagues or when I informed headquarters in Brussels about certain legal issues. ”
– Frank Van de Craen, DCL’78