Yasmin Visram, Law’95, has come a long way using skills she honed at Queen’s Law as a Clinical Correctional Law caseworker and as VP (Academic) of the Law Students’ Society. She’s now the Senior Managing Counsel with Industrial Alliance Insurance & Financial Services Inc. (“iA Financial Group”), which ranks among Canada’s largest and most prominent insurance companies. This year, she received the Canadian General Counsel Award for Litigation Management, nominated by her peers and selected by senior members of the Canadian Bar. 

Canadian General Counsel Awards (CGCA), co-sponsored by the National Post and ZSA Legal Recruitment, recognize excellence in the in-house counsel community.

“As in-house counsel, you have the opportunity to help the business leaders put their vision into play,” says Visram. “This means being attune to business risks – not just legal risks – and it requires you to help the company realize its objectives. You become invested in the company’s long-term vision and because you are part of a bigger team that is tasked with making it happen, it can be quite rewarding.”

As Litigation Management Award winner, she excelled in effectively quarterbacking overall legal strategy, as well as with her hands-on management of a legal team and in making legal strategy decisions that underpin her company's brand.

Visram, who has worked with iA Financial Group for 20 years, manages a small team of lawyers in the organization’s Toronto office as part of a bigger national legal department (iA’s head office is in Quebec City), iA has operations throughout Canada and the United States directly and through its affiliates. In addition to managing strategic litigation across the country, she provides general advice in a broad cross-section of such areas as insurance, corporate services, employment, crisis management and regulatory matters.

“Over the course of my career I have had the opportunity to manage many complex, high-risk and strategically significant litigation files for the company, so I see this award as being a reflection of that work spanning two decades,” she says. 

More recently, however, she managed a highly complex application in Saskatchewan that received global media attention. To do that, she coordinated internal client groups, selected and managed external counsel (a team at Torys LLP led by Patricia Jackson, Blair Keefe and David Outerbridge), coordinated with two other insurers involved in similar litigation, and worked with industry groups. “My work on this file involved not only litigation management, but also associated crisis management, coordination of media communications, and liaising with a host of affected stakeholders,” she says. “We were successful in having the application dismissed in its entirety.” The matter is now under appeal. 

Another aspect of Visram’s work that she enjoys is working with “great people” at iA both on the client side and the legal side. “Many of them are strong, talented women who have served as role models, mentors and peer-supporters,” she says. “I am quite grateful for that at iA.” 

Before she joined iA as in-house counsel, Visram articled and practised on Bay Street. “When I left Queen’s, I felt I had the right mix of academic and applied knowledge to be successful both in private practice and in-house,” she says. Predictive of the industry she would one day be part of, she won the course prize for Insurance Law, as well as for Clinical Correctional Law (now the Prison Law Clinic). 

“Queen’s Law offers practical clinics, opportunities to develop advocacy skills through moots, extra-curricular activities like student council, and pro bono opportunities,” she continues. “It had, and still does have, an outstanding reputation in business law, which helped when I began to look for jobs.” 

What advice does Yasmin Visram give students and new lawyers considering careers as in-house counsel? “Successful in-house lawyers help find business solutions not just legal ones,” she says. “So, be ready to be engaged beyond the law. In doing so you will not just distinguish yourself as an exceptional lawyer, you will mark yourself as a potential leader.”

By Lisa Graham