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42 www.canadianlawyermag.com IN-HOUSE PROFILES FEATURE THE FIRST GENERAL COUNSEL ON BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR A $10.8B LAUNCH Christine Chen didn't just join University Pension Plan Ontario (UPP) in 2021 – she helped build it from the ground up. Within six months of arriving, and in the middle of a pandemic, Chen launched the $10.8 billion fund's legal operations, despite having no infrastructure, no legal team, and no margin for error. "Starting an organization from a blank piece of paper, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she says. "It's also really, really daunting." Personal credit cards filled gaps where systems didn't exist. Critical agency agreements, governance frameworks, and transitional arrangements with the three founding universities were negotiated under intense pressure. "Without [our external counsel], we would not have launched on time," she says. At the same time, Chen developed core legal policies, regulatory compliance structures, and governance documentation for the board, and drafted and negotiated dozens of startup contracts – laying the foundation for UPP's operational independence. Chen wasn't just drafting documents. She was recruiting UPP's inaugural C-suite, hiring her own legal department, and building relationships with key external partners – all while safeguarding fiduciary obligations for the 37,000 pension members they had at launch, which has since grown to 41,000. "We were very deliberate in terms of trying to find senior people," she says. "We needed people who knew what they were doing." Her hiring lens was sharp: excellence was mandatory, diversity non-negotiable. "I'm looking for diversity in candidates, not just from a gender or ethnicity perspective, but really thought perspective," she says. Today, UPP's legal team is 11 lawyers strong, majority female and majority racialized. Chen makes clear this isn't optics, and she expects the same commitment to diversity from external firms. "I ask for the diversity metrics quarterly," she says. "If there are questions around whether they're living up to that, then we will have a discussion." ANGELA MARINOS Company: Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights Title: Chief general counsel CHALLENGING MYTHS AS A SUPREME COURT OF CANADA INTERVENER A legal system that fails to confront myths about sexual violence doesn't just fall short – it can deepen the harm for survivors. That's the reality exposed by the Supreme Court of Canada's recent handling of R. v. Sheppard, where the Court of Appeal of Alberta's decision relied on outdated and damaging assumptions about historic sexual violence at a boarding school. Angela Marinos, chief general counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), says the case revealed just how far the courts still must go to dismantle or eradicate such harmful misconceptions. She recalls reading the appellate court decision and being stunned by the persistence of myths: "There were statements in there about how there is no crime of sexual violence, questioning this person who had gone through horrible sexual abuse when they were 12 and 13, their grade seven year… I literally identified 10 myths and misconceptions, which is unheard of… In most decisions, you'll find two or three errors max… But 10 – that was just extreme," she says. In Sheppard, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the Crown's appeal, restored the trial judge's sentence, and ordered the respondent to report to the authorities within 48 hours to be reincarcerated, with reasons to follow. For Marinos, the shift from government litigator to human rights advocate has been transformative. At the Department of Justice, she was expected to defend legislation and government decisions, regardless of her personal views. The work is also more selective. At the DOJ, files landed on her desk whether she wanted them or not. At the RWCHR, Marinos chooses which cases to pursue, giving her "a lot more independence and legal creativity… I don't have a team of three or four counsel putting their heads together to create the argument. I really like this aspect." CHRISTINE CHEN Company: University Pension Plan Ontario Title: General counsel