Canadian Lawyer InHouse

37 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JANUARY 2017 Ibrahim has had two stints as acting general counsel — the most recent one for 11 months before Johnson arrived. He's worked on investigations related to em- ployee code of conduct violations, fraud and litigation fi les as well as a class action. In his seven years at TCHC, Ibrahim has worked with fi ve different CEOs, six differ- ent GC, several vice presidents of human re- sources, CFOs, COOs, and been on hand for fi ve different auditor general reports and fi ve different ombudsman reports, a mayor's task force and two different reports from Justice Patrick LeSage. But he says it is all legal experience he would not have been exposed to anywhere else. "The amount of experience I've had in seven years here is equivalent to probably 20 years anywhere else. We don't have a lot of resources, so what happens is we have fi rst-year lawyers who get to handle commercial litigation fi les from beginning to end," Ibrahim says. "You get really good experience — you get everything." And when you talk to the other lawyers on the TCHC legal team, that is the com- mon thread for all of them — exposure to interesting and meaningful work early in one's career. "We believe in the vision of the company," he says. "We're doing this because we know at the end of the day we're giving something back. We know we're a target — people are going to take shots at us — some of it deservedly, a lot of it un- deservedly, but at the end of the day we're doing good; we're helping the community." Cheryl D'Souza, senior legal counsel, real estate at TCHC, says she loves what she does. She arrived in 2014 from private practice at Dickinson Wright LLP during a particu- larly tumultuous time at TCHC. "I wanted to play an intrinsic role in the replacement of these old social housing buildings. The work I do is on the back end, but I felt I could say I had a hand in making these revitalizations happen and create this new social housing for tenants despite the lack of funding," she says. She is the only lawyer on the real estate development project, but she is about to hire another person to help her. She also handles corporate fi nancing, construction fi nanc- ing and all the commercial leasing work and general real estate matters such as ease- ments and title issues. In that work she deals a lot with external counsel. "I think Dentons understands our busi- ness well — all of them do, really," D'Souza says. "They try to work with us in terms of fees. They do a lot of fi xed fees for many of the fi les and one thing I'm careful about is keeping their budgets in check. If they ex- ceed it I am making calls because I manage all the development and fi nancing external fees as well. More often than not though they see where we are coming from," she says. While the work is rewarding, D'Souza admits it can be professionally challenging. "We have our challenges; it's not smooth sailing. We have a lot of stakeholders. There are a lot of pressures. The role is not easy — there is political and internal pressure, but the work itself is very interesting and that's what keeps me going." Sometimes the job spills out into community involvement. During the 2013 ice storm, Ibrahim was acting general counsel. He worked 12 hours a day for the next two weeks. "We were knocking on everybody's door providing food, blankets, water," he says. On Christmas Day, he worked 17 hours straight. During the last fi ve hours of that day, he and a vendor drove around going to warming centres across the city delivering food and blankets. "You're not going to get that working on Bay Street — that has noth- ing to do with the legal world — it's about community." While the push to redevelop communities such as Regent Park started back in 1995, it's only in the last year that Ibrahim says he is seeing a real change in attitude in the city around TCHC. "Over the last year, for the fi rst time, people are realizing what the real issues in this company are — lack of funding — a historical lack of funding. The mayor's task force said it was a problem 30 years in the making. That is the fi rst time there has been a public acknowledgement of that fact," he says. Ibrahim says he hasn't been this optimis- tic before. "No one acknowledged what the real problem was. That's out in the open — how it gets addressed we'll see, but at least it's acknowledged now." IH L a w D e p a r t m e n t M a n a g e m e n t Over the last year, for the fi rst time, people are realizing what the real issues in this company are — lack of funding — a historical lack of funding. ISMAIL IBRAHIM, TCHC L a w D e p a r t m e n t M a n a g e m e n t

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