Canadian Lawyer

28 www.canadianlawyermag.com WOMEN IN LAW FEATURES and Black. "You don't just stop being the person you've been at law school — and then all of a sudden you're a new person. There is a new element, but you bring with you all that experience," said Gina Alexandris, senior director of the Law Practice Program and special advisor at Ryerson Law. "Two years ago, I [thought] I'm doing pret- ty well in my career. We had an opportunity to be at a meeting where there were a lot of senior-ranking workers and business pro- fessionals. There was a boardroom table and chairs around the wall. My instinct at that point, even though I was going to be a con- tributor at the meeting, was to sit in the chairs around the wall. . . . I am so grateful to this day for our colleague and friend who came up to me before we were all seated and very quietly told me, 'You need to sit at the table.'" Alexandris noted that another way women seem to be written out of the conversation is that roles where women are well represented ral case-by-case setup of law firm work, Gen- evieve Boulay, counsel with Westaway Law Group, noted that women working part time or from home face the stigma that working from home is not really "working." "If I have to leave because I have an ap- pointment or my child is sick, I actually say that," said Alena Thouin, corporate secretary and deputy general counsel, Financial Ser- vices Regulatory Authority. "As opposed to saying, for a personal matter, which is what I used to say. I actually actively stopped saying that, because I wanted to people to know that if you need to leave, that's OK." Even when they're in the office, women said it could be difficult not to see their identities reflected in the rest of the firm — creating pressure to suppress their own identities. Ger- shbain noted the lonely feeling of being the only queer lawyer when she started out, while Patience Omokhodion, a partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, recounted people's apparent surprise that she was both British forced to go through metal detectors. "I spent a lot of time when I was younger beating myself up for not having the zing to just 'stand up for myself,'" said Cindy Kou, a business law associate at Gowling WLG, de- scribing her run-ins with biased comments. When women go on maternity leave, the team has to almost literally remind clients that she has not disappeared, said Mario Ni- gro, a partner at Stikeman Elliott LLP, who sponsors young women in the firm. By con- tinuing to cc the woman on emails and invite her to client lunches and meetings, Nigro calls the strategy "keeping her warm." "It's very hard. It's just very, very [hard] because you haven't done anything wrong. No one's done anything wrong in the sense that the client is saying, 'You're not around anymore. I'm going to go to work with X. X is now doing great work.' And, often, they forget about you. You come back and the relation- ship is gone," he said. Despite the docketing system and the natu- Lydia Bugden Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner, Stewart McKelvey Colette Stewart Senior Legal Counsel, Interac Alena Thouin Corporate Secretary & Deputy General Counsel , Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) Jacquelyn Stevens President of the Women's Law Association of Ontario, Partner, Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP

• Cover