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CCCA_V7No4_Profiles-FIN_CCCA 13-11-25 12:24 PM Page 16 Profile An in-house counsel finds her dream job — and the role of a lifetime helping others. Pro bono’s A s a young television actor, Young Lawyers Pro Bono Award — fitting answered: “I can do that.” This summer, Yang received the CBA’s Stephanie Yang was cast in roles Yang is grateful for the support MLT gave that stretched the imagination. is a “crusader” in her drive to do and pro- “Time travel, aliens, stuff all over the recognition for someone her colleagues say her, both on the job and in her efforts to keep Tahera in Regina, but nevertheless left map,” Yang says, remembering her high mote pro bono work. the firm in August 2012 for her “dream job.” school and university days at YTV’s “I can’t pinpoint an age where I was aware Her friend, mentor and a principal at MLT, Incredible Story Studio where, between I should give back… it’s like it has always Conrad Hadubiak, was recruited to build 1997 and 2002, “incredible” stories written been ingrained,” says Yang, who says the work the first in-house team at the Brandt Group by children were developed into TV shows has provided her with some big smiles, but of Companies in Regina. and aired worldwide. also cost her many tears and lots of sleep. Yang was hired to work primarily in None, however, would match the lead Yang was born just outside Regina, immigration law and foreign recruitment, role Yang would play after her acting days where her parents Steve and Moira sowed labour and employment law and civil litiga- had ended. those volunteer seeds in her and her three tion for Brandt, a privately held company More than three years ago at Regina’s pro brothers. Steve, half Filipino, half Chinese, is with more than $1-billion in annual rev- bono legal clinic, Yang, now a young lawyer a first-generation immigrant who built a enues and lines of business that include real focusing on immigration matters, heard a commercial cleaning business and later an estate development, financing, engineering, heartbreaking story. Tahera Karimi, a young overseas operation manufacturing steel and agricultural, railway and mining operations. Afghan girl with cerebral palsy, needed help plastic goods in China, but always gave back “When we first started, I’d say it was kind in a desperate fight to remain in Canada. to the community. of like being hit with a fire hose because this “When I first met Tahera, she could barely “Many new families when they arrived company is growing so fast,” Yang says. “We walk,” Yang recalls. “She was bent over almost here, he gave them jobs, helped them out. I are diverse, doing new things all the time. A in the [inverted] shape of the letter L. She had kind of grew up with that, and admired that big thing for me is getting a handle on being crutches. She couldn’t sit up straight.” he did that.” up to speed with the business.” Tahera’s aunt had brought the girl to Yang also inherited her father’s interest in Brandt employs about 1,800 people, one- Regina for surgery to correct the damage business. In 2004, she earned a bachelor of third of whom are foreign workers. “It’s done by an Afghani doctor who had oper- commerce degree in marketing and her law been great to work with them, to help bring ated on the wrong leg, Yang says. degree in 2007, both at the University of their families over and deal with any immi- When the federal government said Tahera Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. gration issues,” Yang says. “It’s a fantastic must return to Afghanistan, Yang led a team In 2008, she was called to the bar while opportunity at this stage of my career.” determined to keep her in Canada. employed at MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman Hadubiak, who first met Yang when she “Tahera would never have gotten the LLP. The timing was perfect. was an articling student, says the young medical care she needed [in Afghanistan], Saskatchewan was on the verge of an eco- lawyer’s energy lights up a room. maybe would never walk again and would nomic boom, she explains, and with it came “In the first two or three months at likely never attend school,” says Yang, foreign workers and a new need for immi- Brandt, there were no less than four senior now 31. “It was a three-year battle but it gration lawyers. When a partner put out a people who used the word — and she’s PAUL AUSTRING was successful.” call for help one day, the young associate going to hate me for saying this — used the 16 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association WINTER 2013