Alain Azar explored several areas of legal practice early in his career, including family law, employment, insurance and litigation, before turning his attention to tax. With a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Ottawa, he saw a connection between his business education and the legal and policy dimensions of tax. He pursued Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Taxation Law as a way to move into a practice he was interested in but had yet to work in directly.
“It was a point of entry,” he says. “I felt like I needed to show firms and other places that I was really interested in tax and had some foundation, so I wasn’t starting from zero.”
Taxation law appealed to Alain partly because of its relationship to finance. The numbers and economic principles were familiar from his commerce degree, but he was equally interested in the policy questions behind them: why particular rules exist and how they affect individuals and businesses.
“There are interesting policy issues in tax law that impact everyday people,” he says. “You can do very meaningful policy work.”
His commerce degree also helped him navigate some of the more complex financial structures he encountered while studying taxation law.
“Having that link between finance and law made it a bit more comfortable for me. A lot of the more complicated tax schemes have a strong financial component, so it’s useful to understand what’s happening and where the advantage is.”
At Osgoode, Professor Jinyan Li encouraged Alain to look beyond the wording of tax legislation and consider what a rule was intended to accomplish.
“There’s always a purpose behind the legislation, and you need to look deeper into that,” he says. “Once you understand the purpose of the rule, you can see whether it’s being applied correctly in a particular factual context.”
Alain entered the LLM without significant practical experience in taxation. Intro to Tax helped him develop a broader understanding of the area. “It put me on the path to understanding tax law in general,” he says. Tax Litigation gave him a clearer picture of how disputes move through the courts — knowledge that would soon become especially relevant.
A fellow LLM student encouraged Alain to apply for a clerkship at the Tax Court of Canada, something he had never seriously considered. “The only reason I applied for the Tax Court clerkship was because of a colleague I met through the program,” he says. “I had never thought about applying for a clerkship before.”
Professor Li then helped him prepare for the interview, including working through a case he had been given to analyze.
“She challenged me to think more deeply about it,” he says. “So when I got to the interview, I felt prepared.”
Alain went on to secure the clerkship at the Tax Court, where he drew on what he’d studied in the LLM. His relationships at Osgoode also continued beyond the classroom. “These are people you can network with, but also people you can become friends with.”
“The program directly contributed a lot to my ability to get the Tax Court clerkship,” he says. “I don’t think I would have gotten it without the program.”
With the LLM completed and his Tax Court clerkship underway, Alain is continuing to develop the legal, financial and analytical skills that first drew him to taxation law.
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