Page 29 - CCCA 250375 Magazine_Summer 2016

{ Feature }

denIs lavoIe loves HIs JoB. He doesn’t Have
tHe typICal In-House Counsel posItIon. IF
lavoIe Isn’t talkIng aBout proCurement,
He’s learnIng more aBout tHe It depart-
ment or CHattIng WItH proFessIonals In Hr
aBout employee engagement.

“I have the best of both worlds,” says Lavoie, Director of
Enterprise Risk Management, Insurance and Claims at
VIA Rail Canada Inc. “I have one foot in the legal world
and another foot in the business world. I’m in charge of all
the litigation but I’m also involved in operations and en-
terprise risk. And when I talk about risk, it’s not just safety
but infrastructure, equipment, employee relations, IT, etc.”
Lavoie represents the growing number of in-house lawyers
who are taking a new route in their legal career. Lawyers can
be a natural ft in senior executive roles in organizations. With
the right set of skills and expertise, the next major step in your
career could be out of the law offce and into the C-suite.

whY moVe
For lawyers to be business leaders, one of the frst steps
is to move out of traditional legal practice. In-house law-
yers have the added value of working within organizations,
which exposes them to the business world. Lavoie spent
fve years in Montreal at McCarthy Tétrault working in
M&A before seeking out a new direction in his career.

“I knew I wanted to work more as a business advisor than
a pure lawyer,” says Lavoie. “I had a chance in 2004 to
work for six months for VIA Rail. I worked on building a
governance structure. I had a very good time there. I was on
assignment and—10 years later—I never left.”

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