Read about OsgoodePD’s alumni spotlights and learn about their career journeys and experiences taking the Professional LLM.
Administrative Law
Maria Capulong
A former Provincial Prosecutor, Maria Capulong also ran her own firm prior to joining Carranza LLP in 2010. She took a sabbatical to pursue her LLM in Administrative Law and serves as an adjudicator on the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board.
Jonathan Vandall
Jonathan Vandall is the Senior Vice President, Compliance and Enforcement at BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA). He enrolled in Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Administrative Law when he was already deep in the world of regulation and public policy.
Business Law
Rehan Qureshi
Rehan is the Vice President, Technology Consulting Services at Maximus Canada. 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.
Inimfon Udokang
Inimfon Udokang is a risk and compliance lawyer at Dentons LLP. She chose Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Business Law because she worked in the Corporate law group as a young lawyer in Nigeria, and has a strong passion and interest in corporate and business law.
Hardeep Chahal
Hardeep is currently acting as legal counsel for Thompson Rivers University. 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 a Corporate and Real Estate Lawyer at Hajtol Ghawi 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 currently acting as legal counsel for Global Intellectual Property & Governance 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 currently serving as General Counsel at MBI Brands. 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 an Instructor in the Justice Studies Program at the University of Guelph-Humber. 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
Armando D’Andrea
Armando is Legal Counsel at Legal Aid Ontario. 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.
Ayderus Alawi
Ayderus is the Principal of Alawi Law. He represents clients across Ontario in serious and complex cases, from assault and drug charges to conspiracy and homicide. The LLM in Criminal Law and Procedure offered him the rare chance to step back from courtroom pressures and explore the theory, policy, and evolving dynamics that define Canadian criminal law.
Dispute Resolution
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.
Kim Gale
Kim Gale is the founder of Gale Law Professional Corporation and the NCA Network. She registered in the Professional LLM in Dispute Resolution after developing an interest in mediation as part of her burgeoning estate litigation practice. She shares how the flexibility of the program allowed her to balance full-time work while engaging deeply with course content and fellow students.
Dr. Paula Cashin
Dr. Paula Cashin is a Radiologist at MyHealth Centre and a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Medical Protective 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 and is also a Lawyer at Deloitte. 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.
Anjana Bandara
Anjana, currently Senior Counsel with the Canadian Disputes and Investigation at TD Legal, shares why OsgoodePD’s part-time Professional LLM in Financial Law was the clear choice that would help her in her search for an in-house role
Trevor Noronha
Trevor is the Senior Legal Counsel, Investments at the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). He shares how the Professional LLM in Financial Law helped him to master the derivatives market and how being an Osgoode alumnus helped him to stand out in his field.
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, a Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a Senior Lecturer at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. 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 Superintendent of Securities 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
Tiwa Orija
Tiwa is a criminal defence lawyer at Legal Aid Saskatchewan. She highlights the practical training she gained from the program that became the foundation of her later success, including drafting legal memos in a Canadian style, conducting legal research using Canadian resources and databases and writing structured research papers and case briefs.
Thais Menezes
Thais is an international student from Brazil who has worked at the Superior Court of Justice (Brazil). She is currently a Lawyer at Humber Bay Law. 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.
Deniz Bulut
Denise is currently an articling student at Dallas Criminal Defense. She explains how the Graduate Diploma was a crucial step that gave her the foundation she needed. It bridged the gap between civil law and common law, helped her master legal research and writing, and gave her confidence walking into the LLM.
Health Law
Evelyn Thompson-Smith
Evelyn is currently volunteering for the LDS Churn in northern Japan. She is formerly 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.
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
Julie Ward
Julie is an associate lawyer at Code Hunter LLP. Osgoode’s Professional LLM in International Business Law offered exactly the mix Julie was searching for, bridging her corporate background with her growing interest in regulatory and dispute-resolution work.
Bianca Tedesco
Bianca is Senior Legal Counsel at Marsh McLennan. Bianca discusses the academic and social experiences during her LLM studies that helped her get to where she is today.
Ankita Puri
Ankita now serves as the Associate Legal Counsel at PSI CRO AG. The Professional LLM broadened her understanding of how business law operates across jurisdictions and also gave her a network and the confidence to engage with colleagues globally.
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 (Fitz) Maguire
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.
Alex Miller
Alex is Counsel, Legal Services at Toronto Police Service. Alex explains that she wanted a deeper understanding of the principles, policies and legislation underlying labour and employment law which lead her to join the Professional LLM in Labour and Employment Law.
Privacy and Cybersecurity Law
Rene Mendizabal
Rene is the CEO and Privacy Officer at Footnote Legal. 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 a Chair on the Independent Review Committee at Forge First Asset Management Inc, an Executive Board Member of the Toronto Chapter at the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists – ACFCS. 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 and a member of the Training Advisory Board Privacy and Data Protection at the International Association of Privacy Professionals. 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 an Assistant Professor at the Université de Moncton Faculty of Law. 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 Deputy General Counsel, Compliance, General Counsel’s Office 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 the President of Hysibasy Consulting, a board member at financial consumer watchdog FAIR Canada and a faculty member at the Directors College. 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 an advisor (International Tax), for Finance Canada. 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.
Jennifer Button
Jennifer is the Director of Corporate Services at Advantage St. John’s Inc. The Professional LLM expanded her understanding of tax in ways that complemented her CPA background. She completed international tax law, succession planning, trusts – topics that really complimented her prior education.
Natasha Shamutete
Natasha is currently the
Senior Manager of Global Banking and Markets Tax at Scotiabank. 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!