Canadian Lawyer

and delivery. "Success in private practice is largely driven by good networking abilities and client satisfaction," she says. "The best private practice lawyers are generally excellent time managers and are able to communicate highly complex issues to their clients effectively. These skills are highly transferable". As well, Leduc says working at Hart Saint-Pierre afforded her the opportunity at the start of her career to have carriage of files with a huge amount of respon- sibility. Working with BLG gave her an opportunity to test her interests in vari- ous areas of law and learn from leading lawyers with diverse practices. "Her desire to push herself to the limit, to challenge her fears and live life to the fullest prob- ably explains why she ends up doing all these crazy things such as jumping out of a plane, traveling to remote places, or living in a conflict zone, tin, a friend of 25 years who is a lawyer at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in New York. "This is possibly when and where she feels the most alive. " says Karina Bou- during a hiking trip to Nepal in 2000 near the end of her time in India. She visited The seed to climb Everest was planted " With the sherpas, Leduc prepares to ascend Mt. Everest. vacation time climbing and is now work- ing her way through the Seven Summits — the highest peak on each of the world' seven continents. Everest is the fifth she has topped. Vinson Massif in Antarctica is next. "[Everest] was harder than I thought because we had such an emotionally and physically trying experience on my first summit attempt," says Leduc. "I also had a friend who told me — I had climbed s "[EVEREST] WAS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT BECAUSE WE HAD SUCH AN EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY TRYING EXPERIENCE ON MY FIRST SUMMIT ATTEMPT. . . . I WAS EXPECTING DENALI TO BE HARDER BUT IT WASN'T. EVEREST WAS MUCH, MUCH HARDER." Everest's base camp and saw the famed sherpas coming down the mountain and the thought entered her mind that it was a real thing that she could do and not just a dream. The fact it would take several years — in her case 12 — was not a deter- rent. Leduc began preparing by taking on smaller mountains, enrolling in climbing courses, and becoming accustomed to the effects of altitude — "I just went higher and higher. " She began spending all of her another mountain with him, Denali [aka Mount McKinley] in Alaska — that I would find Denali harder. I was expecting Denali to be harder but it wasn't. Everest was much, much harder. the climbing community to some degree upon returning to North America. Media reports focused both on the fact that inex- perienced climbers — it was Shah-Klor- fine' Leduc has found herself defending " s first climbing trip — were handing over thousands and thousands of dollars to be hand-held up the trail. Also, Everest had become a perceived tourist destina- tion. The combination of a photo show- ing a long line snaking its way up the mountain and Leduc' caused a sensation. "People are saying 'well, it' s "morgue" tweet sherpa will carry you up the mountain and that' people have," says Leduc. "I don't know that people call it a trek — and I've even heard my friends call it that — means that people don't understand what the moun- tain is about." The trip also was an eye-opener for s not a climb. The fact s just a tourist trap' and that any s a complete misconception that where they got this idea that sherpas carry people and that you can just walk up the mountain and it' Leduc regarding the power of social media. She had opened a Twitter account prior to going on the trip as a means of giving her friends and family status reports. When she left for Katmandu she had 63 followers. She would not become aware that following her during the climb. She could not believe anyone outside of her group of friends would be interested in any- thing she had to say. "[My friends and family] understand my personality and they understand that even though I was tweeting matter of factly there was a lot of emotion underlying that," she says. "What other people think about that I don't really care. They don't know me. thousands of people began Laurie Skreslet doesn't know Leduc, but has an idea of what makes her tick. In " www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com OCTO BER 2012 29

• Cover