Insights on Legal Careers and Networking with Bill Denstedt

Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Studying Law Around the World. Today we'll have the opportunity to hear from a corporate commercial lawyer that specializes in real estate. Bill, thank you so much for joining us today. No problem. Glad to have, glad to be on. It's been a couple of months that we tried to schedule it. So super happy to be here. Thanks again for having me on, Claudio. It's definitely my pleasure. And I know that all that we talked about so far, pretty, you have such an interesting career. You had an interesting path and we'd love to start already there. How did you decide to go into law and where has this journey taken you so far? I always tell 2 stories on that. One of them sounds really sort of, uh, made up and fictitious, but I promise it's true. Most people who went to high school in Ontario, or maybe Canada, I'm not sure how the curriculum works, but in Ontario for sure, in grade 10, for at least people my age, you take careers and civics. It's a mandatory class that we had to take. And as a part of the careers class, we had to take a 500-question survey on a computer that I guess was supposed to tell you what you were going to be, or at least give you a career. And I'm not lying. Number one for me was lawyer. And in addition to that, right around that same time, my grandfather, my dad's dad, was always telling me that I'd be a great lawyer. So I guess that's sort of the, at least in my subconscious, that's what I remember most. And so I think it's around that period of time in my life and influences at school and influences from family. And then that sort of started the ball rolling from there. That's awesome. That's awesome. So starting up in high school and all of that, can you tell us a little bit about your background in the sense of what did you do for a bachelor's and then how did your law school journey start? For sure. So in high school, I was never a great student in the sciences and maths. I always struggled with those, even though I did take them. I took calculus in grade 12 and did horribly. I took data management, I think it was called, and just never really had a good grasp of math and science. I come from a very sort of medical-focused family, if that makes any sense. So there's a lot of vets in my family. My sister's one. There's a lot of doctors. My younger brother is one, and a number of uncles, aunts, and cousins are all in the medical field. And I never really had any dreams of getting into the medical field, but I did want to at least try. And I think early on I realized that I didn't really have the brain for the sciences and the math. So going into university, I went into English and history because at that point I was very set on going to law school. And at the time it felt as though those 2 majors were sort of complementary to law school. In hindsight, I honestly may have, I don't necessarily think those are needed to go to law school, of course, but it just seemed like the good thing to do at the time. And I was an avid reader and still am. So English sounded great to me and so did history because I always had a lot of interest in World War II specifically, which I ended up specializing in, in 3rd and 4th year. So I ended up at Laurier, which I'm from Orangeville, Ontario, so that's about an hour away from home. Ended up at Laurier. A lot of people from my high school went to Laurier that same year, so it almost felt like grade 13 in a lot of ways. In my first year of residence, there was a lot of people I went to high school with on my floor or nearby. So it was a lot of fun. And I always, I was never the greatest exam taker. So the LSAT early on for me was always a challenge. And I started working on the LSAT in second year. And I can't remember when I wrote my first one. I do remember having to go to Thunder Bay for that, but I don't remember when that was. But I was never a great exam taker, like I said, but particularly with the LSAT, I just never managed to master it. And I always did mediocre. So I actually wrote the OSAT 3 times and I progressively got worse actually. And I don't know if that's because of a lack of faith in myself at the time. Before the 3rd time writing it, I actually had a one-on-one tutor and I was meeting with her. She was amazing. I was meeting with her once a week. We were meeting at a cafe in Toronto and I was working at the time and studying with her. Regardless of that, my third time writing it, I actually did exactly the same as I did on the first one. So I was just never able to really master the LSAT, which obviously put me a little bit behind the 8-ball, at least for Canadian applications. Which leads me to the next stage, I guess, which was applying for my first cycle of law applications. And I can't remember exactly either, but I think I was waitlisted at Queen's and Windsor at the time. and ended up not getting in. I then worked for a year full-time for a family business. My dad has a, my dad and brother both own a commercial pool company. I always worked for them in the summers during high school, undergrad, et cetera. So I worked for a year with them while trying to figure out the law school application process. And during that year, I had it recommended to me that I look into Australian schools, actually specifically Bond and Melbourne. And the reason why both of those come up is that in terms of equivalency and NCA exams on the way back, Bond in particular is a good choice because it does have Canadian electives that you can take. And it, there's a lot of, I'm sure you've spoken with people about this in the past, but there's a lot of synergy between Bond and the Canadian process. But I ended up getting into Melbourne and I just jumped on it and I decided to go. I believe I was accepted in September of whatever year that would've been, 2012, was there in November. I think it happened really quickly just because of how the semesters work there and never ended up going through with the Canadian application. And that's how I ended up in Australia and I ended up transferring back to Canada after a year there. So I ended up transferring back to Windsor. And graduating from Windsor with a Canadian JD. Doing that allowed me not to go through the MCA process, which is something I was hopeful to do. And my intention of going to Australia at the time was always to transfer back just because I did want to graduate from Canada if I could. And in hindsight, you know, I wish I could have spent more time there in Melbourne because it was an incredible city. My classmates were probably some of the smartest people I've ever been around. at the time I was there, it was the 5th best law school in the world. Not that I'm someone that cares about rankings too much, but the faculty there and the classmates there were just really brilliant people. And it's an experience that I'm very happy I did. And it ended up working out for me too. So it's perfect. That's awesome. That's awesome. It's so interesting how like your whole journey progressed, right, in law. And I know that law school and then practice of law, sometimes there's a disconnect and it's But once you finally got into law school, did it, did it all feel like it made sense to go through all of that? I've interviewed some people that said, I wanted to go in and I got into law school because of X, and then I stayed because of Y. Do you feel like you have something like that in your own life? Do you feel like you went into law school because you were suggested in a way? So many abilities of yours also matched with being a lawyer. But also, do you feel like you stayed and decided to pursue the career further once you were in because of other reasons? That's a great question. Um, and I'm sure you've gotten some really great answers to that question too, from different people. I, I, I don't think I have anything specific in terms of like academics or passions that were triggered by being in law school. I'm a very stubbornly determined person. And in the sense that I was never a talented student, I'm the first to admit that. My undergrad grades were, you know, decent, but not where they needed to be for law school, especially Canadian. I'd love to go back to the university now and see how I would do because I'm just a lot more— everyone would say this, but I'm a lot more mature now and I'm more deliberate with my time and, you know, I'm more organized and a lot more, much more of an adult than I was in my mid-20s. So when I finally got into law school, I think the main thing that definitely not only kept me there, but kept me working very hard at it, particularly with the transfer application in mind, was that I'm in now and I'm not going to let this opportunity go to waste. And that was my main thing because like I said, it was an uphill battle for me to get in. A lot of it due to my own weaknesses at the time, particularly with Just being a student in general and exam taking, like I said. So when I finally got my foot in the door, that's really what I think clicked for me was the fact that I'm in now, you know, I can't squander this. I need to really crush it while I'm here. I need to make the most of it, do the best that I can. And that, I think that's what really, that was like the next level of my development, I think was finally getting in and realizing that, that I had the opportunity now to become a lawyer and that I, I couldn't screw it up. So that was the, the main thing. Way to go. That's awesome. If I could, hear a little bit about your career. How did it start here in Canada? What practice areas have you had the chance to practice? And you also mentioned quickly that you have a very interesting story about networking, about staying in touch, and I'd love to hear more details on that too. Yeah, yeah. This part's very important to me and I think it's something I always enjoy sharing because, for example, I met you on LinkedIn or I saw you posting on LinkedIn and I reached out to you on LinkedIn. Because I thought what you're doing here is really cool and I wanted to get involved. And all of us try to build our networks and to stay in touch with people and for professional reasons, of course, but also just, you know, your own personal interests. And this story definitely factors into a lot of that. So after I had transferred back to Windsor, I landed in second year there. I did have to take a few first-year courses just due to requirements. I had to take a first-year criminal, first-year Canadian constitutional law, and a few others. The remainder of my credits in Australia were all valid, so I was able to start off in second year. But because of that process, I did miss the traditional OCI summer student cycle. And that obviously most of your listeners will probably know a little bit about that. And if they're younger students, they may be going through it right now or they're gearing up for it. But most people know obviously that landing a summer job, and especially in Ontario, is very important for growing into articling and then eventually getting hired back as an associate. So I was a little bit behind the 8-ball in that respect by missing the OCIs. And for that reason, I was on my own in a lot of ways in terms of trying to get to land one, land a summer job. And I was cold calling and cold emailing. and sending out letters to law firms all over the place. I actually recently looked back at my email inbox, my University of Windsor email inbox, and I had sent out about 137 emails to different law firms and lawyers in Ontario, just trying to get my foot in the door. Around that same time, I was introduced to Alan Ritchie, who's the, as of just a couple of days ago, former managing partner of Luce Nixon. He was my dad's business partner at the time, was doing a lot of his personal legal work and some of the business legal work with, with Loopstra Nixon. And I was introduced to Alan through that connection and basically was told, here's Alan, he's a partner at Loopstra, he's a great guy, maybe he could review your resume, maybe give you some suggestions, et cetera. So I did, I did that and I reached out to him and I ended up getting an interview at Loopstra. as a summer student in 2012, I think it was. Interview went great, you know, amongst very talented people, of course, with probably much higher grades than me, et cetera. But I think I left an impression on a few individuals at the firm who are actually still there. Many of them are still there. And from that day forward, just stayed in touch with, with both Alan and a number of the other equity partners that had interviewed me that day, a couple of which have moved on to other firms, but a few of them are still at the firm. And I actually walk by them every day at the office now. So that was all the way back in 2012 and didn't land that job, didn't land the summer student job. I ended up then working for a mediator in Toronto. He's an employment mediator. His name is Bernard Morrow of Morrow Mediation. Amazing guy. And worked with him and helped him facilitate his mediation practice. A lot of it was sort of administrative work, working on his files, doing reviews of the mediation briefs for him, preparing summaries. I did everything from bookkeeping to invoicing, writing blogs with him to do some online presence work with him as well. Now I'm in 2016 at this point, so I'm working with him, with more, with Bernie Morrow. That's also when I wrote the bar exam. And so I got the bar exam out of the way that year as well. And during that summer, I received an email from Alan Ritchie, That was a posting in the Ontario Reports, which if you're familiar with it, you'd probably know what that is, but most people wouldn't unless you're a lawyer. The Ontario Reports being a publication that goes out on a monthly basis. I always like to refer to it as like the Farmer's Almanac for lawyers because it's basically like a magazine print. And I think that's a pretty decent comparison. And at the back of the Ontario Reports, there's John postings and there's a number of firms that recruit in there. It's almost like a classified section. And Alan sent me a screenshot of a firm in Mississauga that was looking for an articling student. And he emailed me at like 4 in the morning, which is probably when he woke up to start his workday, which I've since learned is normal, and said he knew the principal of the firm and that he'd be happy to make an introduction for me and to sort of vouch for me. And he did that. I sent him my resume and lo and behold, I landed that articling position. at a firm in Mississauga named Allum Law. They are a full-service litigation firm with a focus on personal injury, insurance defense, insurance denials, et cetera. Mid-sized firm. There was about 4 or 5 lawyers, I think, at the time, and a lot of staff because that's a very administrative-heavy practice area. But I started articling there, and due to the high-volume nature of Mohamed's practice, I ended up doing a lot of things that an articling student would never do. I was on my feet in court over 100 times, conducted a number. I also did a, I was also hired back as an associate. So some of this is blended into being an associate there, but conducted a number of examinations for discovery, attended mediation on my own, pretrial on my own, did a number of opposed motions for different reasons. And just a whole lot of experience that you would never get the chance to do, at least from what I know, at a at a larger firm and due to it mostly just due to how busy they were, how many files they had, and also my willingness to kind of jump into it. But just to circle back briefly would be the fact that we're now kind of 5 or 6 years into my development of my career and the Loeb Schonickson connection was kind of throughout, which for the listeners, that's where I work now. So it kind of, it's important to know that obviously throughout. But so article there and from you gathered on my online profile, that's where a lot of my litigation experience comes from. And I was there for 4 or 5 years, I think, in total. And then I ended up moving on to the real estate work. But that's sort of the early stages of the articling summer students part of it. And again, just a super important moment to look back on. Just one person or a group of people, a small group of people that really made a whole lot of difference And to not shy away from those networking opportunities when they come up. That's amazing. It's definitely, I feel like something that people really should be looking out for, you know, the building the network, building your brand, all of that. And oftentimes we hear those words, think they're nice and all, but when it comes to actually doing it, it's a little bit more tricky, right? So yeah, definitely be there on LinkedIn, connect with people. But also show up for interviews, do your best and stay in touch afterwards. I like that. I don't think I've heard many, many stories like that before, and that's just incredible. Just getting the chance to have somebody to, you know, vouch for you. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's an important part of the process. Looking back on it, I can't really think of a moment where I like deliberately made an effort to maintain that connection, but If I look back through my emails, there's multiple days where I went out to Etobicoke and had lunch with some people from Loopcheniksen, and we stayed in touch over email. A couple of the partners that have since left, I was meeting with them too. So, and it, again, it just sort of goes back to being given an opportunity, whether it's by a connection or luck or just a mutual, someone mutual that you both know. And working with people that are willing to invest time into you obviously is very important and being able to recognize the fact that there's people out there who are doing that for you and then not squandering it and making sure that you take advantage of that in a positive way and then to try to grow it. That's awesome, Bill. I've heard from a lawyer a couple weeks ago something that I'm just wondering if many lawyers feel like that. Somebody told me a couple weeks back that they like actually to talk with students or to be, you know, in coffee chats or lunches because your routine is full of very like high stakes, attention to detail, like maybe high stress moments. But then when you get the chance to do basically a break and go 1 hour, kind of just chat with somebody who's starting up on the profession, getting to know their story and all of that, and maybe what you can do for them. That feels a lot nicer than going through the routine of being a lawyer for the most part. Do you feel like that's a general feeling that at least like a large amount of lawyers would sympathize with? I think so. I think for me, it's not that I like consciously think of it this way, I guess, but it's since you're asking me the question, I am now, is I do want to pay it forward in a lot of respects. So. As I just went over it, there's a lot of people that family, friends, and then lawyers obviously that took an investment in me that paid off greatly, obviously. And in a lot of ways, whenever I'm asked, and it happens quite a bit, people within the firm will say, hey, I, a friend of mine's son is, or daughter is going through law school and they have an interest in real estate. Would you be interested in chatting with them? Or sometimes I get random messages on LinkedIn of students that that want to try and have a chat with me. And for me, it's more about, again, not that I think about it this way every time, but I do want to pay it forward. And I, just like people did it for me 10 years ago or 15 years ago, I want to try and do it for others as well. Just a small example of this. I was actually at my family doctor last week having a regular appointment for myself. And, you know, I get along well with my family doc, and he mentioned the fact that his daughter's in second year of law and is worried about the OCI process. And I said, tell her to email me. And she did. And I'm having a chat with her next week. So, and I just, I enjoy it. I get a lot out of it. And I, again, it's about paying it forward, I think, for me. And I really get a lot of joy out of doing that and helping people out in a small way if I can. I've written a handful of reference letters for people back when I was running Realty Law, which we can touch on in a moment. I did have a summer student, sort of. He wasn't a law school student at the time, but he worked with me in the summer. And, you know, I, he stays in touch with me and I've written him a reference letter and things like that. And he appreciates that greatly. And whenever he reaches out to me, I make a point to get back to him quickly and with hopefully some sound advice. Obviously, I myself, I was a bit off the beaten path, so to speak, on my way to law school. And there's a lot of people out there like that. Obviously there's a lot of people that go through kind of the streamlined process for getting hired and all that, but it's not easy out there. And I know what that feels like. And I, there's a lot of moments throughout my time that I didn't think it was going to work out, especially during the articling years and the OCI stuff. And there was a lot of times I was really kind of down on it, but there was people that picked me up and to help people out in the same way is really really meaningful. It's like something that you can't get out of anything else really. Like, yeah, we work hard all the time and we're constantly working, but there's a certain level of genuine meaningfulness that you get out of that sort of discussion with people, which I really enjoy. Fantastic. No, thank you so much for providing some more insights on that. I really appreciate hearing that. And then if you could share a little more about this opportunity you had to run your own firm, And then the current practice you work on. I'd love to hear a little more about that as well. Yeah. And this sort of puts a bow on the Loop Sjeniksen story, which is perfect. In late 2019, when I was still working in the litigation firm, Loop Sjeniksen reached out to me with a job opportunity for a litigation associate actually, but I turned it down at the time because I had just signed a partnership agreement with Another lawyer who was sharing space at the firm I was working at. He had an existing real estate practice running. We met on a file that he sort of was co-counseling with us at the time because he was a real estate transactional lawyer. And we, myself and the other lawyer on that file, weren't very familiar with the ins and outs of a real estate transaction. So we met on that file and we were around the same age. He had a few years on me, but we got to know each other and we got along well. And I saw that he had a practice that was running well. He was doing a lot of transactions, and we eventually decided that we'd start something together and we would sort of rebrand what he had at the time to make it more general and to take his existing book of business and to hopefully expand it. That was in late 2019, right around when Loopstra reached out to me, and then in early 2020, sort of launched the firm. And we got some office space in Mississauga. We named it Realty Law, which obviously suggests that we do real estate. In hindsight, that was a bit of a pigeonhole move because it was hard to branch out from real estate because of the name. But that's another story. But in early 2020, something else happened. If you don't, if you don't forget, it was COVID. So for the first few months, we were obviously just like everybody else, not sure what was going to happen, what was going on. Thankfully for us, at least at the time, real estate really took off. Obviously there was historically low interest rates and a lot, a lot of other factors that caused real estate to be very busy after the initial lockdown. And then the banks and mortgage lenders and the Law Society obviously made some changes to allow for remote signing that allowed us to downsize our office space significantly. And we moved into a much smaller space in Mississauga, which is obviously very advantageous for cost. And we ended up building up a really, for at least for 2 people or 2 lawyers, I should say, with basically part-time staff. We had some law clerks working with us on a contract basis, but we were super busy and it was great. And the firm was running well. And, you know, the, I always like to, a lot of people joke around with me that I'm the Google review guy. There's quite a number of Google reviews on Realty Law that talk about the firm and people's experience and we were having a good time with it. Long story short, in early 2023, my partner, my business partner and I were going our separate ways. He wanted to focus more on corporate law, which obviously a few things there, the name obviously didn't help and a few other things. And around that time I actually reached out to Howard Ritchie, there's that name again, to help me with the windup and dissolution of the partnership agreement and some of the legal matters that go on with all that. And actually hired Loopstra to help me with that and worked with one of the associates here that it's who I've gotten to know really well since then. And she helped me out with everything. And a few conversations into that, Loopstra made a job offer to me as a senior associate at the time and basically said, keep doing what you're doing with the real estate, bring that into the firm. We'll, you know, set you up administratively with some law clerks and our finance team and basically bring over the business that you have going on with yourself. And just do it here instead. And hopefully with the firm's resources and the firm support, you'll be able to just scale more and grow and keep doing more. And it's working. It's definitely working out well. And that was in April of '23. So I'm coming up on 2 years now at the firm, I guess. It was a great decision. It was a hard— it was kind of a bittersweet decision at the time. It was the right one. I knew that from the very beginning. Obviously there's certain joys of running your own firm that I miss. It's a lot easier to just flip your out of office on when you're kind of managing your own files, like completely in terms of your what's going on. And, but I have a lot of independence at the firm, which they told me I would have, which was obviously very important to me as well. And they've honored all of the promises that they made me at the beginning in terms of the support and resources that they would provide. Obviously, this is, like I said, kind of like the final, not the final chapter, far from it hopefully, but kind of a bow on the whole Loopstra story from the very early days, like 10 years later, just being near the firm and connected to the firm in a lot of ways. So to end up like sort of walking the halls, so to speak, of the same place that I interviewed at so many years ago and dropped $1,400 on a suit for that interview, even though I didn't get the job. Is definitely a culmination of a lot of things. So it's, it's, uh, it's something that I'm super proud of and happy to be a part of. That's awesome. No, it's been so awesome to hear your story and how you got where you're at. I love it. And it tells a lot about like playing the long game and making friends along the way, keeping those relationships and doing good work as well. Thank you for sharing. If I may ask a final question then for today's episode. On a personal side now, and talking about traveling, I saw in your bio, you, I guess when you joined the firm at first, you had recently just traveled to England and Scotland. And I was wondering, is there like any place you want to visit on your next vacation, or is there any place you wanted to go back to? What's that for you now for traveling? That's a great question. So last year, my girlfriend and I had plans to visit Japan. And we ended up going to Portugal instead. Portugal, amazing, had a great time. We went to Lisbon in November this past year, but the reason we did Lisbon instead was it was a shorter trip, a little bit less involved than Japan. Japan was going to be 2 to 2 and a half weeks, probably maybe even 3. So we were both— she's— she was both quite busy. We were both busy at work at the time and We bought our first house in the summer as well in July. Financially, Japan may not have been the most fiscally responsible choice at the time either. So we went with Lisbon, a shorter trip, but Japan still top of the list because of that reason. We had it pretty much all planned out. And so we're going to go there at some point, maybe next year, not sure, but we're big suckers for Europe. We Obviously you saw that we did London and Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Bath on that trip, which we really enjoyed. Just coincidentally, wasn't planned like this at all. Obviously when we were in London, it was the Queen's funeral. So we had a very unique experience when we were in London because of that. Our Airbnb at the time that we booked it was about, I don't know, $150 a night or something like that. We rechecked it again while we were there and it was $2,500 a night because obviously there was tons of people going to London because we had booked it a year before and then she passed away and the funeral was while we were there. All the streets were shut down. It was a very unique time to be there. So that was really incredible. But at the end of the day, if you were to ask me, you know, where do you want to go this weekend and for a week, or where do you want to retire? It's my go-to answer is always Italy. We were there in 2018 and We almost went back again instead of Lisbon, but we decided that we should try and go somewhere different. But Italy is my kind of like goal retirement place. I want to have just a tiny little shack somewhere in the hills in Tuscany and just no phones, no laptops except for the computer. I need that for the video games, but we'll, maybe we'll touch that. We'll touch on that one, that other part of my bio. Maybe on another episode. That's right. That's right. I'll have to introduce you to Marco Brown from the States, who's a lawyer who's also passionate about Italy. So we'll be making those connections. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all these aspects of your personal and professional life. Really appreciate having you over at the podcast today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all of this. Really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. I, I always enjoy sharing the story. I often kind of get joked with at the firm a bit that I am kind of mushy about the firm. And it's true though, like I kind of wear it on my sleeve and I'm super happy about working here. I like, and the firm obviously recognizes that in me too, which I appreciate. So I always like to tell the story and hopefully it resonates with other people. There's, you know, it just, I always tell people the same thing, like, you know, Stay at it and it will work out eventually. If you're dedicated to it, you'll, you'll end up getting there eventually. Thank you all for tuning into today's episode, and we'll see you on the next