RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE NAOMI SAYERS
NAOMI SAYERS
Firstly introduce yourself and tell us where your home place is. Describe your job/jobs in just under four sentences. Please also provide your title and profession.
Naomi has a broad public law practice with a focus on Indigenous law, administrative law (regulatory law), environmental, energy and mining law, criminal law and corporate law. With an international reach, people say Naomi’s work is transformative. She has extensive experience in advising a range of entities and governments on privacy issues, Indigenous rights and governance issues.
What sparked your interest to work in this industry?
There are three stories I tell about wanting to become a lawyer:
- I didn’t get into my first choice Master’s program (criminology) at UOttawa;
- I wanted to be like my older sister when I was younger who said she wanted to be a lawyer (I didn’t know what a lawyer did!);
- I was accepted into another Master’s program (women’s studies) but my mentors said to go to law school.
All stories are true. I stayed the course to become a lawyer because I enjoy(ed) the work I do. It’s a long and hard process but it was particularly difficult for myself as I had huge barriers to overcome in the lawyer licensing process. I am happy to have the support that I have today from many senior lawyers to other lawyers around my year of call.
What do you enjoy most about your profession?
I enjoy the people I get to meet and work with every single day. I have a wide and varied practice and I get to work with individuals from those facing serious charges in our criminal justice system to regulated professionals from nurses, accountants and other lawyers. There is an opportunity to be creative in problem solving with my clients. I say problem solving with my clients because it is important that clients play an active role in the file – a lawyer is not a lawyer without their clients.
What educational preparation would you recommend for someone who wants to advance in this field?
People assume that you have to study a pre-law program to get into law school. That is not true. I would recommend researching the universities with law schools that you are interested in attending and review what they look for in a student. I didn’t apply to schools like Osgoode or Western since there is a strong focus on grades and other arbitrary measures like LSAT scores. I only applied to two law schools that adopted a holistic approach to reviewing students’ applications. I got into both schools. There are also a lot of fees associated with applying to law school (writing the LSAT to applying to law schools – the more law schools you apply to, the more expensive your application and that is why I only applied to two law schools). Put a little bit of money aside to help reduce the financial burden. I studied criminology but not because I wanted to go to law school; I really wanted to study criminology at the graduate level. My undergraduate studies did help but it’s not a requirement. I would also recommend reaching out to more recent law graduates to understand the law school experience today.
What does success look like to you for Indigenous youth?
Success is how you choose to define it. My success is not the same for others. I have very different goals in my life and I worked toward those goals. They were not always easy but what helped was my perseverance and problem solving. I didn’t have any lawyers in my family and my only interaction with lawyers were due to my experiences in the criminal justice system or my lawyer licensing application. I always sought out opportunities for learning and I think it is important to keep an open mind and willingness to learn. An important aspect of learning is understanding that you will make mistakes along way. Making mistakes is a part of learning and growth!
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
I failed a tort law class in law school. Tort law is an area of law that includes things like defamation or false arrest. It wasn’t that I wasn’t good at tort law and in fact, I went onto practice tort law and practice it today. I just wasn’t good at writing multiple choice exams. I failed and this meant an F appeared on my transcript. If I didn’t pass tort law, I wouldn’t be able to continue in my law school studies.
When I reviewed the rules governing failures for my law school, there was also a rule that said if a law student did a re-write of an exam (including re-writing an exam if you failed), only the re-write grade showed on the transcript. I asked the school to update my transcript to reflect the rules. They, at first, said no. I then used this opportunity to understand how administrative law worked in context. Administrative law looks at whether the right procedure was followed or whether an administrative decision-maker made the appropriate decision. The administrative decision maker in this law school context would be the person who made the decision not to update my transcript.
I appealed that decision and said that the rules are clear, only the re-write grade should show and the law school is a competent decision maker, meaning they made the rule and they should correctly apply the rule. The funny reason the rule said that only the re-write grade should show was because there was a technology update at one point. Apparently, this rule was a solution to the technology update. Anyways, I won. My F does not appear on my transcript. While I only got a D on my re-write, I think this experience says a lot more about my ability to be a lawyer than writing a law school multiple choice exam. I never was successful for any firm interviews but I firmly believe that law firms who still ask to see grades are really doing a disservice to so many potential future lawyers, Indigenous or not. I see law firms today still ask for grades for some second- or third-year calls (I am 2018 call in Ontario and 2020 call in Alberta). Grades just show how well someone writes an exam or writes a paper; grades do not give any indication as to what kind of lawyer someone is in comparison to another.
What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?
I really enjoy the following three books:
- Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry – shameless self-plug, it has a blog post I wrote that was adapted into a poem.
- Reflections by Rosa Parks – I used this book recently to help me think about some difficult arguments in a complex case I was arguing in court. I used this book to inspire me to talk about complex issues impacting a vulnerable group and having the judge connect to my clients’ story.
- Political Risk by Condoleezza Rice and Amy Segart – This book is such a wealth of resources for thinking about political risk which is super important when representing clients who face political risk with their legal issues.
I can’t say any three books greatly influenced my life; the books come into my life at different times and I use them for different reasons.
Do you volunteer? If so, where and why is that important to you?
I volunteer whether it be sitting on boards or pro bono work in my own law practice. I occupy a privilege space (which does not mean I am privileged by all means) by being a lawyer and understanding how the law works. I think it is important to give back through volunteering and by sharing my understanding of the law because law and justice doesn’t work if only a few people can access it. While I cannot help everyone who comes to me with legal issues, I do make an effort to divert them to other resources or lawyers who can assist. Sometimes that helps more than anything.
In the last year, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?
I struggle with body image and have done so throughout my entire life. Over the past few years, I have made very intentional changes to help me overcome these issues. I knew that alcohol made me feel like crap when I drank even a little bit and that it wasn’t good for my body (I would feel bloated for days after drinking one glass of wine). Alcohol also didn’t help with my anxiety or sleep. This is not to pass judgment on people who do drink. Drinking is just not for me – it doesn’t and didn’t make me happy.
So, I made small changes to my life – going to bed earlier, waking up earlier and taking up running again. I ran my first 10k in 2018, then continued running. I made goals to drink less and eventually quit drinking all together. I started to sleep better and feel better. I also started seeing a personal training the first year I started practicing law. That changed my view of fitness and health. The personal training regime created a holistic and sustainable nutrition guide for my own life (working a stressful job and still wanting to each chocolate!). I ended up losing the weight I gained during articling and law school. Being an Indigenous woman, I had tried many things, and sometimes harmful things to manage my body image. I realized that when I set to focus on my health and well-being, I was happier. The weight loss was a by-product.
With the pandemic, my goal is now just to keep moving. It is absolutely 110% harder to try to maintain your fitness during a global pandemic – the gyms are closed; you can only grocery shop at certain times; and everyone is facing different stressors. So, I am working on changing my mindset around weight and food. I know what foods do make me feel good and I am working on eating to make me feel good, in the short and long term. This obviously helps with managing my weight which is a by-product and not the focus. When I started this journey, I looked around at the leaders in high profile positions and I would listen to them speak about their daily practice – many didn’t drink and many were intentional about the activities they did. If it doesn’t make me happy, why should I do this activity?
This is my goal: to be more intentional. The benefits are plenty! I don’t think I could have my own law practice if I continued to drink, not taking care of my own health and well-being.
What are some challenges you think the next Indigenous generation will face in your industry/profession?
In my experience, I found there is a lot of pushback to not enter certain industries like energy sectors for Indigenous lawyers. I worked in the energy sector for a few years. I loved it and I learned so much about how big companies operate including how they interact with other stakeholders. It helped me to become a better lawyer when serving my clients. People often ask me, “How could you work there?” It was easy – the people were great, and the experience was great. I wouldn’t have learned what I can do now without that experience. In the long run, it just wasn’t for me and that is okay too.
Indigenous people who are interested in studying law have to be okay with knowing that not everyone will agree with your choices to enter certain sectors but you have to be okay with knowing that things change including your own goals/wants/needs. It’s okay to want to work for a pipeline company and learn new skills. It is also okay to want to help Indigenous activists fight those pipeline companies. Both are valid. As for other challenges, entering the legal profession is a huge accomplishment but it’s not for everyone; it’s okay to want to study law but never practice it. All of these are valid. Be okay with not knowing, not understanding, being wrong, being misunderstood and not having everything line up as you have planned.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore?
Often times I hear others reach out to lawyers who have never run their own law practice before (being in private practice doesn’t mean you know how to run a law practice on your own) and it boggles my mind. It’s like going to a carpenter whose never built a table and asking them how to build a table. Why would you do that? There are tons of resources out there that help lawyers start their own law practices. Use them.
Some information may be relevant but others may not. Take what you want to use and apply it to develop your own practice. Be mindful of others’ time. In fact, start being clear about your boundaries around time. I get asked a lot for insight and I am more than happy to provide it. However, I have had individuals show up late or cancel last minute or multiple times. I often had students and other lawyers contact me who clearly were not prepared and clearly didn’t do the research nor any work prior to the meeting. If you can show up on time, be prepared and have questions to ask, you are already ahead of so many. If you don’t know where to start or what kind of questions, that’s okay – just say so.
There is a certain level of understanding when asking questions and if you are not sure, it is completely ok to say, “I am not sure whether I am asking the right questions but I would like to ask you about …” People will help you work things out if you don’t know but don’t try to pretend to know (it will backfire in any situation). I am direct and I care about the people that I talk to but I am not for everyone. It’s okay to even ignore my advice. I recommend a “take what you need and leave what you don’t need” kind of approach to any advice.