Canadian Lawyer

February 2010

The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers

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CROSS EXAMINED everyone's a Dartmouth lawyer is an opera singer, reservist in the Canadian Forces, and more. BY DEAN JOBB r ebecca Hiltz LeBlanc has per- formed for up to 10,000 people at a time, but these days she faces intimidating, single-member audiences — in the courtroom. "It's much more frightening to be in front of one judge," says the associate with the Nova Scotia firm Boyne Clarke. But when she's in the midst of a trial or on one of her frequent forays into the province's Supreme Court chambers for motions and applications, her far-from-typical background as a soprano comes in handy. "Litigation is not that far from opera singing," the 36-year-old commercial and business law practitioner notes over tea at her firm's Dartmouth offices. "You're standing up in front of someone, and whether it be one person or 10,000 peo- ple, you're still trying to convince them that what's coming out of you is to be believed and that you're right. You know how it feels to be applauded," she says, adding with a laugh, "or not." Hiltz LeBlanc was called to the bar in 2004, but already has an impressive record of service. She's a director of a non-profit organization that helps people with brain injuries, recently joined the board of Halifax's Neptune Theatre, and serves on the gender equity committee of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society. And that's on top of being a corporal in the Canadian Forces reserves. She signed up 19 years ago, while in her high school band, lured by the offer of a 20 FEBRU AR Y 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com critic

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