Read about OsgoodePD’s alumni spotlights and learn about their career journeys and experiences taking the Professional LLM.
Administrative Law
Sandra Dzever
Sandra is an associate lawyer at Seligman Law in Toronto, practicing mainly in the area of immigration litigation. Sandra shares her advice for people thinking about pursuing an LLM and delves into the ways that an LLM has enhanced her professional credentials and led to new opportunities.
Manu Sud
Manu is a manager of business analytics at Fasken in Toronto. Manu reflects on his varied skillsets and achievements across industries – including engineering, finance, technology and the public sector – and how obtaining an LLM helped him fulfill his goals.
Amanda Wickett
Amanda is a partner at McDougall Gauley LLP. Amanda shares her journey from public to private practice, balancing her work, studies and family life, and how she accomplished her goals through learnings during her Professional LLM.
Business Law
Rehan Qureshi
Rehan is the head of services for the Cloud Practice at Google. With over 20 years of experience as a technology and business solutions leader, Rehan discusses how he found the Professional LLM to be a fantastic program to round out and enhance his education.
Maood Tahir
Maood is a Crown attorney at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. Maood details the facets of Osgoode’s Professional LLM that he appreciated, including the top tier faculty, the relationships gained, and the structure of the program which made it easy to balance his studies alongside full-time employment.
Jonathan Pinto
Jonathan is a chief client officer at TMX Investor Solutions at TMX Group. Jonathan shares his experience during his LLM studies that helped him get to where he is today, alongside providing advice for lawyers and non-legal professionals who are considering Osgoode’s Professional LLM for themselves.
Canadian Common Law
Sam Ghawi
Sam is an associate lawyer with Allan Snelling LLP. Sam details his journey as an internationally trained lawyer that led him to pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM, and how it culminated in him practising law in Canada.
Dian Thompson
Dian is an intellectual property lawyer and a member of the Trademark and Copyright Law practice groups. Dian details her experience with pursuing an LLM and how it was everything that she had hoped for as it prepared her for practising law in Canada.
Yulia Vasilyeva
Yulia is a lawyer at Jones & Co. Yulia explains how pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM gave her a sense of community, which she credits for her sense of longstanding and important relationships.
Constitutional Law
Tyna Mason
Tyna has been legal counsel with British Columbia’s Ministry of the Attorney General since 2000. Tyna shares with us her experience of returning back to school after 25 years to take the Professional LLM and what a valuable experience it really was.
Jena Karim
Jena is based in the U.S, working in the in the high-stakes international development field to strengthen new democracies around the world. Jena shares how pursuing the Professional LLM over a JD degree enabled her to gain the knowledge she needed for her unique line of work.
Criminal Law and Procedure Law
Jacob Stilman
Jacob practises as a litigation lawyer and has represented thousands of clients at trials, appeals, and hearings. Jacob shares how Osgoode’s Professional LLM re-kindled his enthusiasm for law after having practiced for over two decades.
Dispute Resolution Law
Mike Lamothe
Mike is a labour relations officer at the Ottawa Police Association. Mike explains how the knowledge that he has gained from pursuing Osgoode’s Professional LLM has filled in gaps left by his formal education and has resulted in him being more effective within his career.
Sandhya Kohli
Sandhya works as a mediator and conflicts consultant. Sandhya was looking to learn more about the various methods of conflict resolution that fall under the umbrella of alternative dispute resolution, which led her to the Professional LLM.
Energy and Infrastructure Law
Ara Arzumanian
Ara is senior in-house counsel at Hydro One. Ara describes how the Professional LLM allowed him to gain more crucial knowledge about the electricity sector after specializing many years in the technology side of the business.
Manish Paul
Manish is a project management professional at Hydro One. Manish reflects on his credibility in conversations with stakeholders at multiple levels in capital projects, and how it has been enhanced by obtaining Osgoode’s Professional LLM.
Yakov Radyushin
Yakov established his own law firm, Radyushin Law. With a penchant for learning and passion for law, he knew he could increase the quality of his legal energy and infrastructure knowledge by obtaining Osgoode’s Professional LLM.
Financial Law
Jason Dutrizac
Jason is a Current Student Ambassador (CSA) in the Professional LLM as well as a commercial litigation lawyer. Jason shares with us his experience of transitioning more into corporate commercial work as well as bankruptcy and insolvency after the Professional LLM.
Joanne Thornton
Joanne is the Bank of Montreal’s head of Volcker Rule Compliance Office. After years of going over different options, Joanne describes the unique aspects of Osgoode’s Professional LLM and the career benefits that it has in terms of day-to-day applicability and future growth opportunities.
General Law
Cherie Daniel
Cherie Daniel’s was looking to bridge the two elements of her career in law and education. After a while of looking for a general law degree to help pivot her practice to new areas of law, she settled on the Osgoode Professional LLM in General Law.
Solange Espinoza
Solange is co-founder of Freymar Consulting. Solange helps Canadian companies and other organizations understand Mexico’s legal/policy environment. The Professional LLM helped her apply her deep knowledge of Mexican law in Canada.
Foundations of Canadian Law Graduate Diploma
Yanki Gur
Yanki is an international student from Turkey who completed the Graduate Diploma Program, and moved on to pursue the Canadian Common Law LLM. She describes her journey to become licensed to practise in Canada.
Thais Menezes
Thais is an international student from Brazil who has worked at the Superior Court of Justice (Brazil). She comes from a civil law background and explains how pursuing the Graduate Diploma Program was the best decision she’s made in her life.
Health Law
Dr. Sandra Donnelly
Sandra is a clinical nephrologist at William Osler Health System and an associate professor at University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Sandra shares her thoughts on Osgoode’s Professional LLM for those considering the program while discussing the value that it has brought to her life.
Dr. Qaiser Fahim
Qaiser is a clinical ethicist at Trillium Health Partners. Qaiser reflects on the nature of Osgoode’s Professional LLM and how the program provided him with a deeper understanding of how to navigate the ethical complexities of his profession.
Hilary Chung
Hilary is a senior associate at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Ottawa. Hilary discusses the flexibility of Osgoode’s Professional LLM program, and how she was able to balance her studies with a burgeoning career by accessing online classes in real time alongside in-class peers.
Intellectual Property law
Yonida Koukio
Yonida is a business and intellectual property lawyer at Oziel Law. Yonida shares her LLM journey, including taking courses to meet NCA requirements, making strategic connections and engaging in extracurriculars.
International Business Law
Ramanuj Basu
Ramanuj is a senior manager working in the Economic Sanctions compliance office for a Canadian bank. Ramanuj credits his internship, facilitated through Osgoode, on forming the basis for him to establish credibility in the Canadian market.
Bianca Tedesco
Bianca is a lawyer at EY Law LLP. Bianca discusses the academic and social experiences during her LLM studies that helped her get to where she is today.
Labour Relations and Employment Law
Allison Cheron
Allison is the director of the Client Service Centre at the Law Society of Ontario. Allison describes what made Osgoode’s Professional LLM the perfect fit for her continuous learning goals, and how the program exposed her to a world-class faculty and peers with multidisciplinary backgrounds.
Privacy and Cybersecurity Law
Rene Mendizabal
Rene is a privacy research lawyer for a privacy compliance software company. Although Rene works with privacy on the daily basis, the Professional LLM gave him the opportunity to see it all in a different context which was extremely useful in his career.
Securities Law
Jason Alcorn
Jason is a senior legal counsel and special advisor with the Financial and Consumer Services Commission in Saint John, New Brunswick. As an experienced securities regulator, Jason shares how obtaining an LLM has assisted him to better handle practical issues that arise with his work.
Taxation Law
David Cade
David is a senior tax analyst in the International Tax Group at Deloitte LLP. David describes how he could indulge in research and paper writing while completing his program, which ultimately lead him to receive the CTF-Fasken Martineau DuMoulin Award for the best Ontario paper of 2020-21.
Heather Evans
Heather is the Executive Director and CEO of the Canadian Tax Foundation. Heather spent many years as a tax lawyer before she became one of the earliest graduates of Osgoode’s Professional LLM in Taxation Law.
Matias Zerbino
Matias is a senior tax manager at Scotiabank. Matias talks about his path to obtaining an LLM, including the quality of Osgoode’s professors, how he overcame language barriers, and the many new opportunities that now await him in his career.
Check out our blog for all the latest Alumni Spotlights!