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CCCA_V3No3_Profiles-FIN.qxd:CCCA_V1No1_Profile-FIN.qxd 9/16/09 9:46 PM Page 17 novels, written in spurts during her children’s hockey games and lives one’s life,” she says. Profile on business trips;former National Post columnist;mother of three; Her colleague Sandy McDade, senior vice-president and gen- and a volunteer with theYWCA’sWomen of Distinction Awards. eral counsel of Weyerhaeuser Company in Federal Way, She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Simon Washington, has a different take. “She’s just bloody smart,” he Fraser University, a law degree from the University of British says, praising her as a crackerjack lawyer, principled negotiator Columbia and a master’s degree in law from Cambridge. She is and good judge of people. fluent in French and Italian and speaks of being “mortified” that Giardini is careful to give credit where credit is due. Her chil- she has not yet learned one of the local aboriginal languages of dren’s nanny — a“wonderful helpmate”— has enabled her to pur- British Columbia. sue her professional and creative objectives.The family still employs But ask her whether she considers herself an overachiever, and her even though the children are now 14, 17 and 20 years of age. she shrugs. “Really, when you think about it, when you take off your “I’ve thought about this a lot lately, because I’ve been asked own plate things like shopping and cleaning and cooking and about this a lot. None of it seems odd to me; it’s just how one laundry and maintenance of a house, then that does open up AUTOMNE 2009 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 17