Read about OsgoodePD’s alumni spotlights and learn about their career journeys and experiences taking the Professional LLM.
Administrative Law
Manu Sud
Manu is a manager of business analytics at Fasken in Toronto. Manu reflects on his varied skillsets and achievements across industries – including engineering, finance, technology and the public sector – and how obtaining an LLM helped him fulfill his goals.
Amanda Wickett
Amanda is a partner at McDougall Gauley LLP. Amanda shares her journey from public to private practice, balancing her work, studies and family life, and how she accomplished her goals through learnings during her Professional LLM.
Melanie Toolsie
Melanie serves as legal counsel for the Department of Justice Canada’s National Litigation Sector. Here she discusses how an LLM in Administrative Law built on her existing work experience, allowing her to “zoom out” and appreciate the theory behind the work she does.
Business Law
Rehan Qureshi
Rehan is the head of services for the Cloud Practice at Google. With over 20 years of experience as a technology and business solutions leader, Rehan discusses how he found the Professional LLM to be a fantastic program to round out and enhance his education.
Kate Salter
Kate is Director of Legal Services at provincial transportation agency Metrolinx. Already an award-winning lawyer, Kate chose an Osgoode LLM to bring her to the next level as a strategic partner to her clients. She shares her journey and how the Professional LLM set her up for success.
Hardeep Chahal
Hardeep is currently Senior Associate Counsel at Kamloops’ oldest law firm, Morelli Chertkow. Hardeep discusses how taking on a teaching position reignited his passion for learning and how Osgoode’s distance learning options allowed him to complete a Professional LLM without feeling like a second-class student.
Canadian Common Law
Sam Ghawi
Sam is an associate lawyer with Allan Snelling LLP. Sam details his journey as an internationally trained lawyer that led him to pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM, and how it culminated in him practising law in Canada.
Dian Thompson
Dian is an intellectual property lawyer and a member of the Trademark and Copyright Law practice groups. Dian details her experience with pursuing an LLM and how it was everything that she had hoped for as it prepared her for practising law in Canada.
Yulia Vasilyeva
Yulia is a lawyer at Jones & Co. Yulia explains how pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM gave her a sense of community, which she credits for her sense of longstanding and important relationships.
Constitutional Law
Tyna Mason
Tyna has been legal counsel with British Columbia’s Ministry of the Attorney General since 2000. Tyna shares with us her experience of returning back to school after 25 years to take the Professional LLM and what a valuable experience it really was.
Jena Karim
Jena is based in the U.S, working in the in the high-stakes international development field to strengthen new democracies around the world. Jena shares how pursuing the Professional LLM over a JD degree enabled her to gain the knowledge she needed for her unique line of work.
Ann Wallington
Ann is currently the Acting Associate Dean in the Faculty of Social and Community Services at Humber College. She shares how Osgoode’s environment was immediately welcoming to her. Nearly ten years on, and Ann still looks back fondly on both her classes and the contacts she made.
Criminal Law and Procedure Law
Armando D’Andrea
Armando is a staff lawyer with Legal Aid Ontario’s Provincial Case Management Office. Armando shares his experience as a student in Osgoode’s Professional LLM programs and tells prospective students to embrace the chance to make their own contribution to the dialogue.
Stacey Purser
Stacey is currently a Criminal Trial and Appeal Lawyer with Purser Law. She discusses what drew her to the part-time Professional LLM in Criminal Law and Procedure and how the value of the connections she made with other professionals in the criminal justice system.
Jacob Stilman
Jacob practises as a litigation lawyer and has represented thousands of clients at trials, appeals, and hearings. Jacob shares how Osgoode’s Professional LLM re-kindled his enthusiasm for law after having practiced for over two decades.
Dispute Resolution Law
Mike Lamothe
Mike is a labour relations officer at the Ottawa Police Association. Mike explains how the knowledge that he has gained from pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM has filled in gaps left by his formal education and has resulted in him being more effective within his career.
Sandhya Kohli
Sandhya works as a mediator and conflicts consultant. Sandhya was looking to learn more about the various methods of conflict resolution that fall under the umbrella of alternative dispute resolution, which led her to the Professional LLM.
Paula Cashin
Dr. Paula Cashin is a radiologist for MyHealth Centre and the Director of the Canadian Medical Association. She shares how the Dispute Resolution LLM gave her the knowledge and skills to rebuild her career after experiencing discrimination and conflict in the workplace.
Energy and Infrastructure Law
Marty Venalainen
Marty is currently serving as Director on Infrastructure Ontario’s Transaction Legal team. He shares how his personal convictions have motivated his professional decisions and led him to enroll in Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Energy and Infrastructure Law.
Manish Paul
Manish is a project management professional at Hydro One. Manish reflects on his credibility in conversations with stakeholders at multiple levels in capital projects, and how it has been enhanced by obtaining Osgoode’s Professional LLM.
Yakov Radyushin
Yakov established his own law firm, Radyushin Law. With a penchant for learning and passion for law, he knew he could increase the quality of his legal energy and infrastructure knowledge by obtaining Osgoode’s Professional LLM.
Financial Law
Joanne Thornton
Joanne is the Bank of Montreal’s head of Volcker Rule Compliance Office. After years of going over different options, Joanne describes the unique aspects of Osgoode’s Professional LLM and the career benefits that it has in terms of day-to-day applicability and future growth opportunities.
Justice Agyemang
Justice, now a senior legal counsel in the commercial banking, global trade and receivables finance department at HSBC Bank Canada, shares his journey into financial law and discusses how the part-time Professional LLM in Financial Law helped to expand his network and give him a more holistic view of the industry.
General Law
Harinder Gahir
Harinder is a Lawyer, Mediator and Arbitrator at Gahir & Associate Lawyers. He shares how the Professional LLM in General Law helped him achieve his career goals and shares his best advice for prospective new students!
Solange Espinoza
Solange is co-founder of Freymar Consulting. Solange helps Canadian companies and other organizations understand Mexico’s legal/policy environment. The Professional LLM helped her apply her deep knowledge of Mexican law in Canada.
Matthew Yap
Matthew is the Director of Legal Registries at the Government of Northwest Territories, as well as the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) Chair for the Northwest Territories. The Professional LLM in General Law allowed him to focus his degree in several areas relevant to his career.
Foundations of Canadian Law Graduate Diploma
Yanki Gur
Yanki is an international student from Turkey who completed the Graduate Diploma Program, and moved on to pursue the Canadian Common Law LLM. She describes her journey to become licensed to practise in Canada.
Thais Menezes
Thais is an international student from Brazil who has worked at the Superior Court of Justice (Brazil). She comes from a civil law background and explains how pursuing the Graduate Diploma Program was the best decision she’s made in her life.
Health Law
Evelyn Thompson-Smith
Evelyn is the Director for Strategic Capital Planning for Central Zone at Alberta Health Services. Evelyn shares her experiences in the Professional LLM in Health Law and how she continues to use what she learned in that program in her daily life, especially as she listens to and works with frontline clinical teams.
Dr. Qaiser Fahim
Qaiser is a clinical ethicist at Trillium Health Partners. Qaiser reflects on the nature of Osgoode’s Professional LLM and how the program provided him with a deeper understanding of how to navigate the ethical complexities of his profession.
Hilary Chung
Hilary is a Senior Associate at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Her interest in health law grew after seeing how health policies and laws affected patients navigating the system. She shares how Osgoode’s part-time LLM gave her more in-depth knowledge of the healthcare landscape and allowed her to explore a career in health law
Intellectual Property law
Yonida Koukio
Yonida is a business and intellectual property lawyer at Oziel Law. Yonida shares her LLM journey, including taking courses to meet NCA requirements, making strategic connections and engaging in extracurriculars.
Ashkan Alavi
Ashkan is senior manager of patent technology for TDBank Group. Ashkan shares how his interest and science and technology eventually led him to Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Intellectual Property Law to round out his knowledge of IP Law and to complement his practical experience with patents and trademarks.
John Drover
John is a Partner at Roebothan McKay Marshall. He shares how an interest in arts and culture eventually led him down the path to becoming a lawyer and how the Professional LLM in Intellectual Property Law provided the ideas, faculty members and guest speakers who exploded his knowledge of the field.
International Business Law
Ramanuj Basu
Ramanuj is a senior manager working in the Economic Sanctions compliance office for a Canadian bank. Ramanuj credits his internship, facilitated through Osgoode, on forming the basis for him to establish credibility in the Canadian market.
Bianca Tedesco
Bianca is a lawyer at EY Law LLP. Bianca discusses the academic and social experiences during her LLM studies that helped her get to where she is today.
Labour and Employment Law
Allison Cheron
Allison is the director of the Client Service Centre at the Law Society of Ontario. Allison describes what made Osgoode’s Professional LLM the perfect fit for her continuous learning goals, and how the program exposed her to a world-class faculty and peers with multidisciplinary backgrounds.
Tim Fitzgerald
Tim is an Ontario Works Caseworker for the City of Toronto and has been a part of the leadership of CUPE Local 79 for over 20 years. Tim shares the motivations that led to him joining the Professional LLM in Labour and Employment Law and some of his standout experiences as a student of the program.
Privacy and Cybersecurity Law
Rene Mendizabal
Rene is a privacy research lawyer for a privacy compliance software company. Although Rene works with privacy on the daily basis, the Professional LLM gave him the opportunity to see it all in a different context which was extremely useful in his career.
Tania Narciso
Tania is the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, TSXT for TMX Group. She shares her experience being a student in the inaugural cohort of the LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law, including what made her choose OsgoodePD to help confront the digital revolution that challenged banking and financial institutions.
Nadia Jandali Chao
Nadia is a Partner with Lerners LLP. She was part of the inaugural cohort of the LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law. She shares her motivations for joining the program and how it immediately started benefiting her interactions with stakeholders.
Securities Law
Jason Alcorn
Jason is a senior legal counsel and special advisor with the Financial and Consumer Services Commission in Saint John, New Brunswick. As an experienced securities regulator, Jason shares how obtaining an LLM has assisted him to better handle practical issues that arise with his work.
Charmaine Chung
Charmaine is the Associate General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for EY Law LLP. After discovering her passion for securities law, Charmaine wanted to stay ahead of the game. She joined the Professional LLM in Securities Law to gain more knowledge and in-depth experience as quickly as possible.
Harvey Naglie
Harvey is currently a board member at financial consumer watchdog FAIR Canada. He shares how the insights he gained during his decade as a government advisor – combined with the new skills acquired from his securities law LLM – were vital in his new incarnation as a consumer rights advocate.
Taxation Law
David Cade
David is a senior tax analyst in the International Tax Group at Deloitte LLP. David describes how he could indulge in research and paper writing while completing his program, which ultimately lead him to receive the CTF-Fasken Martineau DuMoulin Award for the best Ontario paper of 2020-21.
Heather Evans
Heather is the Executive Director and CEO of the Canadian Tax Foundation. Heather spent many years as a tax lawyer before she became one of the earliest graduates of Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Taxation Law.
Natasha Shamutete
Natasha is currently the
Senior Tax Staff – Transaction Tax at EY. She shares her journey from Zambia to the UK and back, before coming to Canada to join the Professional LLM in Taxation Law. She shares how the program helped to take her career to the next level.
Check out our blog for all the latest Alumni Spotlights!