Canadian Lawyer

24 M A Y 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m C R O S S E X A M I N E D COURTESY GRACE MCDONALD race McDonald was planning a short break from the pressure cooker of corporate and securities law when she signed up to climb a 6,000-metre Nepalese mountain in 2010, a trip that would let her tick Everest Base Camp off her bucket list and help her recover from the burnout triggered by multiple 100-hour work weeks. But the mountaineering bug bit hard, and each big peak led to a bigger or harder one. Toronto- based McDonald, 38, says she'd go back to law if conditions were right, but traditional, conservative law firms don't seem able to accommodate a team member who wants a couple of months off each year to indulge her exhilarating, high-altitude passion. "I'm a mountaineer that used to be a lawyer," says McDon- ald, who is just weeks away from her second attempt to climb Mount Everest, which at 8,848 metres is the biggest mountain of them all. She says it should be possible for a law firm to accommodate a request for unpaid mountaineering leave for a securities lawyer, who could work one transaction at a time, and that it should perhaps be easier than accommodating a mother who is seeking a four-day work week. But nobody was interested. "Because I did transactional work, I never really under- stood why it wasn't possible to do some transactions, and then just not take on the next deal. I wasn't asking to be paid for when I was away. But once a year you would let me go away for the six to eight weeks that it takes to climb a mountain," she says. "But there's just no appetite for that. . . . Most lawyers are still fighting for their weekend, let alone their six-week vacation." McDonald is all too familiar with the super-intense work- load at big law firms and in in-house jobs. She graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2003 and had stints as a securi- G Grace McDonald's climbing Grace McDonald's climbing bug has her heading up Mount bug has her heading up Mount Everest again soon and away Everest again soon and away from the practice of law. from the practice of law. By Janet Guttsman No room for a mountain climber's dream

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