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FEATURE 8 www.canadianlawyermag.com CROSS EXAMINED to build an infrastructure practice from his experience in land development. "While the firm had some exposure to the construction industry, it was difficult to leverage a broader practice, but I saw it as taking one step beyond where I was towards my goal, and so attended numerous industry events." Wong also met with Osler, which had a construction law team that could provide the mentoring he wanted. So, he kept in contact with them and was eventually invited to join the firm, becoming an equity partner in 2009. In 2016, he became chair of the construction practice group. Throughout that time, Wong began to realize how quickly the legal profession had become specialized. He felt he had found a team of colleagues at Osler who shared his passion for construction and engineering. As Wong settled into Osler, he began to mentor other lawyers with a similar back- ground to his, a rare sight on Bay Street. "I am one of a growing number of East Asian partners at Osler," Wong says. "It's rela- tively easy for me to use my position to open doors, knowing it will be good for the firm and give back to the community." Wong has served for many years as Osler's internal partner lead for the Osler Asia- Pacific affinity network, a group of more than 40 Osler lawyers. Outside the firm, he wanted to give back to the broader Asian community. Having "Progression and perceptions are areas that aren't talked much about: how does one actively manage that process, and how does one shape how others perceive you in that process?" a Korean background on his maternal side, Wong volunteered with the Korean Canadian Lawyers Association. Most recently, Osler hosted 50 lawyers for the KCLA's year-end AGM. But Wong has also expanded to the broader Asian community, recently hosting over 100 young lawyers and law students for a Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers event at his firm's office. The annual event theme was "speed mentoring," where partic- ipants sit at narrow tables and mentors meet mentees for short introductions. Wong says the support Osler provides to him to be a mentor and leader for the Asian community can also be a positive example for other large law firms. "I'm very much a proponent for making the other seven sisters jealous of what we're doing in the hopes that they will then go back to their folks and say, look, we've got to up our game." At the networking events, Wong says it is often about helping younger lawyers under- stand how to overcome stereotypes and see themselves as leaders like his father advised him to do. "Progression and perceptions are areas that aren't talked much about: how does one actively manage that process, and how does one shape how others perceive you in that process?" In other words, Wong wants to provide sound advice on leadership, like his father did many years before. INFRASTRUCTURE MANDATES City of Toronto for the development of the Union Station Revitalization Project Henvey Inlet Wind LP, a joint venture between the Henvey Inlet First Nation and Pattern Energy, in the $1 billion financing and construction of the 300 MW Henvey Inlet wind farm Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Atomic Energy of Canada for capital project development work, including disposing and handling nuclear waste, at Chalk River Laboratories and Whiteshell Laboratories Marmon Holdings, a Berkshire Hathaway company, on developing and constructing engineered process equipment for the oil & gas and industrial water treatment industries in domestic and international markets Immediate past chair of the international construction division of the American Bar Association Forum on Construction Law