Canadian Lawyer 4Students

Fall 2009

Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training

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BY PATRIC SENSON Taking the circuitous route Michael Rosenberg's journey into law has been anything but direct, however this fall he'll be starting his career clerking for Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. H ow do you become the clerk for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Hon- ourable Beverley McLachlin? An undergradu- ate degree from Harvard University, a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge in the U.K., and coming top in your class aſt er fi rst year at the Uni- versity of Toronto law school, certainly help. Add to that a mother who is a law professor and winning the 2009 Harvey Strosberg prize for an essay on class action lawsuits, and you would probably be a shoo-in. But for Michael Rosenberg, who has all these qualifi cations, clerking at the Supreme Court is not something he has always dreamed of. In fact, becoming a lawyer has only in the last few years become part of his plan. Rosenberg's fi rst passion was politics. While at Harvard Uni- versity, he edited the Harvard Political Review, where he had the chance to meet many of the top political fi gures of the time. As part of his studies, he developed an interest in international development, particularly the economics of exporting textiles from the developing world. Th is proved interesting enough that he wrote his graduate thesis at Cambridge on the subject, but along the way, he started to hear a strong message. "People kept saying," says Rosenberg, "that if you care about this business, you have to think about it in terms of trade . . . and by the way, wouldn't it be nice if you had a law degree." Not wanting to trust others' judgment, Rosenberg had to see this for himself, and spent "a lot of time in the fi eld," he C ANADIAN Lawyer 4STUDENTS SEPTEMBER 2009 25

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