When I walked into a recent Group of Racialized Ontario Women Litigators (GROWL) gathering, I saw a room filled with exceptional women — brilliant, accomplished, hardworking. Yet some carried themselves with hesitation, with gestures that seemed to apologize for occupying space. I recognized those gestures because I once carried them too — and on some days, still do.

If I could speak to the younger version of myself — the woman applying to law school from a women’s shelter, the mother told to give up school and become a janitor, the law student doubting her English — I would share three things. I would share them with the younger me, and with anyone in this profession who feels unseen, underestimated, or unsure of their belonging.

1. Be Yourself Without Apology

When I prepared for On-Campus Interviews in 2L, I did what many racialized students do: I tried to be the version of myself I thought they wanted. I memorized answers, rehearsed for days, and even prepared 40 questions about my past experiences.

During one interview, a young white male associate became visibly bored — until I mentioned my son’s hockey team. Suddenly, the energy shifted. Half the interview became a conversation about skiing and hockey, two Canadian sports I barely knew. I left the Zoom meeting feeling foolish. I didn’t get the job.

Then the deeper question stayed with me: Why was I trying so hard to be someone I wasn’t?

I was a refugee woman who applied to law school from a women’s shelter. I had taken the LSAT three times. I once had to beg Ontario Works for $100 for LSAT study materials, only to be told, “We are not here to help you go to law school — we are here to get you any job, even as a janitor.” My children’s sports programs were funded through bursaries I found by writing dozens of applications. Words like “damp” and “miscellaneous” were new to me just a few years before law school. I still learn English through case law, conversations, and grocery labels.

So why was I pretending to be a “normal” law student who had barely known struggle?

To my younger self — and to any young lawyer reading this: stop pretending to be someone else. Your journey is your strength. Your past struggles are not your shame; they are your medals.

2. Find Your Allies — and They Are Not Always Who You Expect

In 1L, a law professor told me I should “go back to ESL school, not law school.” In 2L, a well-meaning lawyer told me my accent was “too strong” and no judge would understand me — and suggested a speech therapist.

They could have been right, but they could not foresee how much I would grow. Today I represent clients before tribunals and courts. I give interviews on national media. I deliver keynote speeches to social workers, newcomers, and legal professionals. My English improved with time and practice. So did my confidence.

I did not grow alone. I grew because I found allies — mentors who guided me, encouraged me, and opened doors for me. Some of them were not who I expected.

People are just people: some are good, some are not. Lawyers are no exception. In my early career, some local lawyers told me directly that I would fail within a year and drown in debt. Some made it clear that, as a refugee-turned-single-mother with no connections, I was not their idea of a future colleague.

Despite those experiences, I also met remarkable mentors — older white male lawyers who mentored me on cases with respect and generosity, female law firm owners who openly shared their experience of management, seasoned immigration lawyers who shadowed me on challenging files, and community partners who believed in my work before I believed in myself.

If I had looked only for people who shared my identity — refugee, racialized, single mother, first-generation student — I would probably have found no one. But when I reached out beyond stereotypes, I found genuine allies, especially in the immigration and refugee law bar. Those allies are the ones who helped me keep going on the days I questioned everything.

3. Think Bigger — Much Bigger

If someone had told the woman in the shelter — the one washing dishes for minimum wage, juggling two kids with precarious immigration status and $18,000 of debt to the CRA — that she would one day become a lawyer, open her own law practice, lead a team of four, argue cases in court, and be invited to speak at conferences across Ontario, I would have laughed or cried, or both. I would have thanked the person politely but not believed a word.

All of this would have sounded impossible. But here I am. Not perfect. Not without struggle. But here I stand.

Comparison is the thief of joy. In law school, I constantly compared myself to classmates raised in legal families, with prestigious careers or enviable Bay Street salaries. All comparison gave me was bitterness and self-doubt. Eventually, I learned: do not compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to who you were five years ago.

So to the younger me — and perhaps to the younger you:

Think bigger than the limits of your past.
Dream bigger than the expectations placed upon you.
Climb until you decide you no longer want to climb.

When I look back now, even just a few years, I see a road paved with tears and laughter, hardship and victory, enemies avoided and comrades found. And I know this with certainty: everything along this journey — the ashes, the pain, the struggle, the suffering — has shaped a better me. Not a moment in my life was wasted, even if my journey here has taken a little longer than others’.

Final words to the younger me: if you ever doubt that you belong in this profession, remember how far you have walked to stand where you are. That alone is proof that you deserve to be here.

Originally published in the Ontario Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division newsletter (November 2025), inspired by reflections shared at a GROWL (Group of Racialized Ontario Women Litigators) gathering hosted at RavenLaw LLP in Toronto on November 19, 2025. Read the original publication →

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