Canadian Lawyer

tion from law school. "My parents were really displeased when I told them because I hadn't done my bar school yet. They thought I was giving up on what I had been studying for years to achieve, recalls. "Despite having been brought up in that lifestyle, they couldn't believe that I was thinking of taking my practice abroad, at least so soon after graduation." She says it was the best year of her life " Leduc at the time. It also confirmed she was on the right path. Following her father' the Ivory Coast, where they moved when she was eight. The African nation is one of the world' Human Development more than one-quarter of its population lives on less than $1.25 per day. "It was extremely difficult at first," she says. "The poverty struck me and I have very vivid memories of the place even though I was only eight. I think being exposed to that led me, at an early age, to having a bet- ter understanding of the world and how lucky we are in North America." The fact Leduc succeeded in sum- miting Everest was no surprise to those who know her. She is known to finish everything she attempts and — not sur- prisingly, really — is considered to be an over-achiever dating back to when she was admitted to McGill University's Faculty of Law in Montreal at the age of 17. "Sandra does things because she wants to do them, not because of what anyone' of her are," says friend Kristin Janson, a s expectations lawyer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. "She has an adventurous spirit. She' ing with sharks and she's taken vacations and trips that other people wouldn't take." Which brings Leduc's story to Afghani- s gone cage div- stan, a country whose mere name sends shivers down the spine of most Canadians. On the day Janson was interviewed for this story, Taliban gunmen entered a hotel near the capital Kabul and killed 18 civilians during a 12-hour standoff. Kabul is where Leduc met Janson; they were both posted at the Canadian embassy and working for Foreign Affairs. Leduc was employed in its political section for two years, returning to Canada in September 2011. Leduc spent her first year in Afghani- s poorest. According to the Indices of 2009, stan living in a three-metre wide blast- proof shipping container with two tiny windows that didn't open, according to a story written for JustInfo, a Department of Justice publication. Living in a compound meant Leduc and other embassy staff were confined to an area that equalled one city block. "We spent most of our time in a compound but the reality is that we lived in a war zone, fact. You set it aside and you do your work and chances are nothing' political reporting on rule of law mat- ters including justice and corrections sec- tor reform and human rights issues. She worked in close collaboration with senior Afghan officials and United Nations and other stakeholders in the international community to develop and recommend strategies for reform in the country. Those two years were naturally tough on her mother, whose reaction to being told of her daughter' In Kabul, Leduc provided advice and of the world's most unappealing places for foreigners was "don't go." "When she s latest destination was one came back, she told me she had made a number of trips outside the wire in the province of Kandahar [a former Taliban stronghold]," her mother says in an inter- view that took place two days after seven people from the United States base were killed in that city by a suicide bomber. "But she' As long as she's happy, it's OK with me." Much earlier in her career, Leduc spent " Leduc says. "You live with that s going to happen." articled in the Hague with the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Crimi- nal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Because she was bilingual, she was also asked to work on appeals relat- ing to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as the appeals were being heard at the ICTY at the time. After her articles, she returned to Ottawa to be close to her mother for a few years. "When you have those experiences — like at The Hague and India — it' s death, Leduc typical legal career which largely revolves around business law, in a major firm. She spent eight months after returning from India at Borden Lad- ner Gervais LLP in Montreal, providing advice on commercial and labour law matters. She went there to see what the big firm experience was like; BLG was attractive because of its work in interna- tional law. It was Leduc' She indeed tried working in that area s very hard to go back to a " says Leduc. s happy doing what she's doing. a year — from the fall of 1999 to the fall of 2000 — in New Delhi, India, as a junior professional consultant in the legal unit of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She learned she had been short-listed for the position on the day of her gradua- which is known for its strong human rights program, a summer at boutique firm Hart Saint-Pierre in Montreal in the summer of 1999, and her work at BLG that led her to believe what her experi- ences abroad confirmed: she was drawn to public law issues and not meant for the world of corporate law. She admits though to being sucked s experiences at McGill, into the law firm hiring period at school, where students battle for the best grades in the hopes of attracting the biggest firms and biggest paycheque. She doesn't decry her experience working in law firms however. She believes both firms she worked for provided her with critical legal, and even diplomacy, skills, par- ticularly as they relate to client service www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com OCTO BER 2012 27

• Cover