Jennifer Teskey, Norton Rose Canada LLP, Lexpert 2012 Rising Star

My area of practice is commercial litigation, and I chose commercial litigation in a bit of an indirect route. In fact, my practice started in bankruptcy insolvency, and initially I thought that the balance between 50% corporate and more or less 50% advocacy work was the right balance for me. And about six months into my practice, I realized that I really enjoyed the advocacy side as opposed to the corporate transactional side. And so I approached some members of my firm, and I really do think it speaks volumes about Norton Rose, and that within a couple of weeks I was moved to litigation. And quite frankly, haven't looked back since. And really love the variety of my practice and the various challenges that I face daily.

What I value most about my practice, I think it really is twofold: the first is the people, and secondly certainly is the clients. In terms of the people, I've been extremely fortunate over the years to have worked with some amazing mentors, true mentors in the sense of the word, people that are exceptional advocates, people that are invested in my own career development, people that have been there as sounding boards to provide advice and, when needed, some direction. And as well as working with those phenomenal people, I've also had the chance of working with some really exceptional students and associates, and I can only hope that I've been able to provide some of the same kind of mentoring to them along the way.

As I said, the outside clients obviously are also extremely key, and I've had the wonderful opportunity of working with some very exceptional clients and learning a ton from them. There's nothing like the feeling of when you are intertwined with your clients' business and they come to know you as an advisor and as a confidant, and working with them towards achieving their goals, both in the legal context but as well as the practical reality of their business. And that's a real pleasure.

The real highlights of my career have certainly been several. It's certainly achieving fantastic results for a client. There's nothing better; the feeling is outstanding, either walking out of court or getting a decision that is precisely what you've been working towards for so long. And so having the opportunity to share that with clients is really a special, special thing. Also, I would say on a personal level, achieving partnership was a real pinnacle in my career. It happened as soon as I had returned from my second maternity leave, and it really to me was a reflection of not only my own personal accomplishments but a real measure of the support that I've had over the course of the past several years, be it from my caregiver, to my husband, to my colleagues at the office, and of course my clients.

The best piece of advice I ever received from a mentor would, I think, actually be twofold. The first is to be yourself, because as soon as you try to be someone else, it's just not going to work. You're going to feel uncomfortable, you're going to be insincere, and quite frankly, I don't think either one of those things works, either from a client interaction perspective or in terms of presenting before a court as such. The second piece of advice would be: know your case. And fortunately, I had a mentor tell me that pretty early on in my practice, and I came to realize that by knowing my case and by preparing, that it didn't matter how senior or how experienced someone was on the other side, that by having that preparation I was able to deliver my case and be the best advocate I could be for my client.

Law is certainly a practice that can be all-consuming, so I think it's very important to have involvement outside of the office as well. And for me, that has taken the form of community involvement, be it in something as simple as involvement in my mother's group, or more recently I've been involved in an initiative called the Teaching Respect in Schools program, which is a partnership between Norton Rose and IBM, wherein we go into schools across the Toronto region and teach children about anti-bullying and the importance of inclusiveness and respect. And it really has been an exceptional opportunity and experience.