It can be an overwhelming experience for someone starting their career and trying to make sense of it all. Advice about success is all around us and often contradictory. You hear, “work hard,” “make a life,” etc. But truth be told, one size does not fit all.

A lot of lawyers warn that you can’t succeed by giving away free advice, but I’ll ignore that for the time being. As the chief commercial officer, general counsel and corporate secretary at Infrastructure Ontario, I’ll share four insights, which I have gleaned from my own experiences, on how to build a fulfilling career in law.

1. KEEP AN OPEN MIND

Don’t let one-track ambition steer you into a rut. When I was in high school, I wanted to be cop. However, thanks to supportive, but persuasive parents, I went to university and then law school.

After graduating from law school, my interests and ambitions remained focused on criminal law. If you told me then that I would be general counsel of a large government agency overseeing billion-dollar infrastructure deals, I would have laughed. But by keeping an open mind, I discovered the challenge and fulfilment of corporate law, and realized I enjoyed engaging in the rough and tumble of negotiations and deal brokering. And that, as Robert Frost would say, has made all the difference.

2. TAKE CHANCES EARLY IN YOUR CAREER

Being open-minded about your career path also means being open to taking chances. Your career will peak early if you follow a safe, cookie-cutter approach.

The legal profession is changing so quickly that lawyers of tomorrow need to be more forward-looking and innovative than any generation of lawyers before. The burst of legal technology startups in recent years means you have more opportunities than ever to shape what a fulfilling and successful career will look like in five, 10 or 20 years’ time — if you’re innovative. So take chances, and look into new ways to deliver legal services.

3. FIND A CHAMPION TO HELP FORGE YOUR PATH

None of us have a crystal ball, so we need help seeing those opportunities down the road. Mentors are critical, but so are champions.

Champions are people who recognize your potential and will promote you inside and outside of your organization. To find one, you must be bold. Approach someone you feel could be that champion, and prove you’re worth their time and effort. In today’s world, we all need others’ help to hold a light that we can shine in.

4. HAVE A LIFE

Finally, the last ingredient to my own success is to have a life beyond work. I love my job, but I love my family more. It is important for me to ensure that priority plays out on a daily basis by showing up at my kids’ football and hockey games, and being home for family dinners.

Achieving all this means making difficult choices. Sacrifices will need to be made — getting to that dinner with friends might mean only dessert at home and working on a report the next morning. Constantly juggling a schedule is inevitable. But make choices that are true to your priorities. The term work-life balance is a bit of a false premise in my experience (the reality is more like work-life chaos). It is a bumpy ride, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Canadian Lawyer Magazine today named Marni Dicker, Infrastructure Ontario’s Chief Commercial Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, one of Canada’s Top 25 Lawyers. Dicker was recognized under the category of In-House Counsel by professional peers.

The Top 25 list was based on nominees selected by an internal panel, accomplished members of the bar and the magazine’s editorial team.  Voting was opened up to the profession to participate in selecting the finalists.

The Magazine describes the list as “Encompassing deal-makers, achievers, leading (General Counsels), highly-recommended practitioners and other lawyers who have impacted our lives, laws, business and government – this list pulls from the complete universe of the legal profession to include those who have had the most impact in the past 12 – 18 months.”

Ms. Dicker is responsible for all of Infrastructure Ontario’s transaction structuring, and leads the Legal Services, Procurement, Transaction Finance, Commercial Projects, Business Strategy and Communications teams.

Background Information

• Infrastructure Ontario (IO) is a Crown agency owned by the Province of Ontario. It provides a wide range of services to support the Ontario government’s initiatives to modernize and maximize the value of public infrastructure and real estate.
• Ms. Dicker’s team works with all IO business units to deliver the complex projects handled by IO, whether civil projects like transit, transportation or bridges, or social projects, such as hospitals and colleges

Additional Resources

• Marni Dicker bio
• About Infrastructure Ontario
• Canadian Lawyer Top 25 Edition 

Quotes

“We define ‘influential’ as not just about bright stars, big deals, or number of media mentions —although those may play a part. It’s about people who have power, and influence the laws, justice system, legal profession, and civil society in Canadaand abroad today.”
– Canadian Lawyer Magazine

“It’s an honour to be recognized by my peers in the legal industry as one of Canada’s Top 25 Lawyers. My amazing team at Infrastructure Ontario motivates me to be a better leader every day. They have played a big part in my success.”
– Marni Dicker, Chief Commercial Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary

“Marni is a valuable member of our executive leadership team. We are delighted she has received this acknowledgement and applaud her success. The Board of Directors relies on Marni’s legal and business expertise to ensure that IO’s work continues to be an industry success story.”
– Linda Robinson, Chair, IO Board of Directors

“Marni plays a critical leadership role on all of our commercial decisions.  Her legal and business experience is a real advantage to Infrastructure Ontario’s mission to protect the public interest.”
– Ehren Cory, IO President and CEO

Recipient

Marni Dicker, Infrastructure Ontario

It’s a good thing that Marni Dicker, this year’s Business Achievement award recipient, is a self-confessed “deal junky.” As chief commercial officer, executive vice-president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Infrastructure Ontario, Dicker leads the strategy, conception and implementation involving the spending of more than $50 billion on provincial infrastructure.

“We cross the province east to west and north to south,” Dicker said. Infrastructure Ontario covers everything from building hospitals and schools to long-term care facilities, sports stadiums and courthouses. “Our pipeline going forward is massive.”

It’s a role she takes seriously, and is one that she knows has a major impact on people’s every day lives.

Dicker recalls visiting the Humber River Regional Hospital, the first digital hospital built in North America. A woman on dialysis overheard Dicker talking about being involved in the construction and broke down crying, thanking her on behalf of the patients who use the building for making it comfortable and easier for people on treatment.

“It really touched me,” she said. “The innovation that went into that building is remarkable.”

When Dicker left her former job at SNC Lavalin almost five years ago to join Ontario Infrastructure, she had a purpose in mind: use her skill set to do some good in the community and deliver social services in a more efficient manner.

Dicker has been at the forefront of developing Ontario’s alternative financing and procurement model used to procure and build public infrastructure. It’s a model that she has touted to international and U.S. audiences.

She knew early that she wanted to be involved on the business side and not just legal. However, she said it was her training as a lawyer that helped. “The skills I learned as a lawyer are the skills that allowed me to successfully transition to the corner office.”

It’s been three years since the Law Practice Program (LPP), a new path to licensing offered at Ryerson University, accepted its first cohort of candidates. And yet, there are still doubters who think the program is, and always will be, worse than articling. To those skeptics, Marni Dicker, executive vice-president and general counsel at Infrastructure
Ontario, has one message: “You’re dead wrong.”

Dicker, who oversees a team of 50 lawyers and law clerks, is in a position to know. Each year, she serves as an LPP mentor, shepherding candidates through the four months of online practical training that make up the first half of the program. Under her guidance, they work through mock files in seven practice areas, from corporate to family. Dicker also, each year, hires an LPP candidate for the four-month work placement that follows their hands-on training. We sat down with Dicker to find out what makes the program a success.

Many lawyers see articling as the gold standard in legal training. That’s in part because students, when they have questions, can pop down the hall and access seasoned partners. How can the LPP compete with that?

First of all, that’s a myth about articling. Most students go to associates with problems. They’re almost always a few steps removed from senior counsel.

That’s not the case with the LPP. Over the course of the online training portion of the program, candidates have direct contact with a mentor — like me — who is always a senior lawyer. Mentors spend at least seven hours a week connecting with candidates about their work.

The bulk of that training has candidates carry mock files. How effective is that?

Candidates do tough work. In the corporate law module, for instance, they write a shareholder’s agreement from scratch. Articling students would never get an opportunity to do that. Not a chance. I always joke that, at best, they might get to photocopy one.

When you hire LPP candidates for work placements, how do they perform?

On day one, they can pick up a file and run with it. They’re so confident. When I tell them we need to do a real-estate closing, they know exactly what to do.

Have you hired any candidates back?

Absolutely. Each year, I take on one LPP candidate and one articling student. And in the past two years, I have hired back my Ryerson candidate, but not my articling student.

What do you hope for the future of the LPP?

This program must remain. I know some people think the program is second-tier, and that it’s only for students who can’t get articling jobs. But that’s just not true. The students are exceptionally smart.

Any final thoughts?

I’ll add one last thing. I’ve spent years building an impeccable professional reputation. Does anyone think I would ever attach my name to something second-tier? I’d never do that.

Marni Dicker truly believes women can have it all, even if they work in a male-dominated industry like infrastructure.

The bulk of Dicker’s career has been in “a man’s world, with a hard hat on and steel toe boots.” A self-described “energizer-bunny”, she works full-time for Infrastructure Ontario (IO), chairs Women Build with Habitat for Humanity, is a distinguished visiting scholar at Ryerson University, is a mentor for the Women’s Executive Network, an executive sponsor of Women IO, and chair of IO Gives Back. All the while, she makes time to go to every single one of her sons’ football games.

“You don’t have to be ashamed to be a mother,” she says. “I almost over do it because I’m trying to lead by example. I have a young team with little kids. I want them to know it’s okay to go to your kid’s play at 11 a.m., because you don’t get those days back, and I get a better productivity from my team. Nothing is suffering. Work is getting done and family appreciates it.”

As Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Infrastructure Ontario, Dicker has a wide portfolio. She oversees six different departments — legal, procurement, strategy, communications, record management, and insurance — all the while being responsible for corporate governance. Essentially, there isn’t a file Dicker isn’t involved in.

Infrastructure Ontario is responsible for all major construction projects in the province, including the Eglinton Crosstown, which is part of a 12-plus billion dollar transit plan for the region. “That was my deal and transaction, putting the deal into market, procuring a partner who would be ultimately delivering the project.” she said.

The other big project she was involved in was the venues for the Pan Am Games, including the athletes village, which is currently being converted into a multi–use community.  For Dicker, the most exciting part of her work with the Pan Am Games was that they weren’t just creating a venue for a singular event; they were actually making a difference in people’s lives. “We aren’t only building infrastructure, we are building communities.”

Before joining the ranks at Infrastructure Ontario, Dicker spent 16 years with the SNC-Lavalin. She was recommended by a friend, and despite the fact that she didn’t know anything about engineering, construction, or real estate at the time, SNC-Lavalin recognized her capabilities and hired her anyway. They said they wanted someone smart and eager to learn — and that was Dicker in a nutshell.

She thrived in that environment, embracing every challenge. Twenty years later, she is one of the leading experts in infrastructure development and corporate counsel, something she would have been unable to claim if she hadn’t taken the extreme risk to leave her job in litigation for something completely out of her comfort zone.

Dicker’s heart and passion for the industry is revealed when she speaks of this difficult transition. She went from being a litigation lawyer to a businesswoman, but every new step has given her skills that make her incredibly successful in her field. As she says, she uses her legal training to provide excellent business leadership.

This dedication to the field  is noticeable when she speaks. She talks a mile-a-minute, exuding excitement over seemingly-small details of a project. You can tell she thrives under pressure and doesn’t back down from a challenge.

Dicker is very aware of how male-dominated her industry is, but acknowledges it’s changing, albeit slowly. “What I think we need is more examples of women who have been successful in those fields and we women need to actively mentor young women and take them under our wings to show them the ropes, because if we don’t they will be left behind.”

And that’s what Dicker is trying to do with Women IO and the Women’s Executive Network. She wants to be a mentor for other women seeking senior leadership and guidance. Some of the big topics during networking sessions include work-life balance and how to grow your career.

“We need to go out and show them [women] that working in the infrastructure world is no different than the female-dominated industry of nursing. If they see more women in the industry, it will incite them to joint the ranks of architecture or project finance.”

Dicker’s biggest strength is her ability to do it all, something she says is only possible “because I’m crazy.” She is one of those people who goes to the gym at 5:30 a.m., works hard throughout the day, and then still finds time to give back to the community. “I’m not happy sitting down, because I feel like I have so much to do and I have so much to offer, whether it’s personal to my family, professionally in the workplace, or in a volunteer capacity. It’s really gratifying to me.”

Dicker admits that this industry has made her a stronger person, but counters that it doesn’t mean you have to give up your femininity. And that’s something she hopes all women can begin to understand.

Last year, Dicker was recognized as one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women.

Innovation means different things to different people but Angela Nikolakakos, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary with Natixis Global Asset Management Canada, says for her it means the “openness to doing something differently.”

“It’s about doing things faster, cheaper and changing the way I do things so that I get more results for my efforts, and external law firms help with that at every turn, or at least they can if they listen,” said Nikolakakos, speaking last week along with two other general counsel at a Toronto Legal Marketing Association luncheon panel “Legal Innovation . . . Our Clients Expect It” moderated by Lexpert editor-in-chief Jean Cumming.

Lawyers from banking, the public and private sector, and law firms were well represented in this year’s list of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

At least 11 lawyers are on this year’s list as determined by the Women’s Executive Network. The Top 100 is produced each year to highlight the professional achievements of women across the country. The winners were honoured at a dinner in Toronto last Thursday night.

Those representing the legal field on the list for 2015 include:

Infrastructure Ontario (IO) is proud to announce that Marni Dicker, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, has been recognized by the Women’s Executive Network (WXN) as one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women.

Launched in 2003, the Top 100 Awards celebrate the incredible accomplishments of Canada’s top female executive talent in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. Ms. Dicker is a recipient in the public sector category. She and fellow award recipients will be celebrated tomorrow at a gala event in Toronto.

“For these highly accomplished women, receiving a Top 100 Award means much more than recognition or a chance to share the spotlight with other remarkable Winners, it’s an opportunity to pay it forward,” says WXN founder, Pamela Jeffery. “WXN Top 100 Award Winners are powerful women both in their careers and their potential to transcend boundaries to have a greater impact on the communities around them.”

Honoured by the Network’s recognition, Ms. Dicker believes that women leaders can have it all. She describes herself as an unapologetic hockey and football mom and stresses that being a leader every day begins and ends at home.

“It is a great honour to be recognized alongside such an impressive group of Canadian women,” said Dicker. “For me, leadership is about paying it forward – sharing experiences, knowledge and perspective to help other women achieve their goals.”

“Ms. Dicker is a strong, intelligent and effective leader, and IO’s Board of Directors congratulates her on this well-deserved recognition,” said IO Vice-Chair Linda Robinson.

“We are very proud to have Ms. Dicker on Infrastructure Ontario’s executive team. She has exceptional experience in the private and public sectors, and is a leadership role model in IO and beyond,” said IO President and CEO Bert Clark.

Ms. Dicker joins a prestigious community of past Award Winners, including Canada’s most iconic women trailblazers: Margaret Atwood, best-selling author; Dr. Roberta Bondar, astronaut; Arlene Dickinson, chief executive officer, Venture Communications; Christine Magee, president, Sleep Country Canada; Michaëlle Jean, former Governor General of Canada; Heather Reisman, founder and chief executive officer, Indigo Books & Music; and, Kathleen Taylor, chair of the board, Royal Bank of Canada.

About Marni Dicker

Ms. Dicker is Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at IO, and she leads the Legal, Procurement, Strategy and Communications, Insurance and Records Management teams.

Ms. Dicker is also the Executive Sponsor for “Women at IO”, a group designed to equip women to be more successful, personally and professionally, and encourage a culture that embraces the value that women can bring to the business and community.

Ms. Dicker was recently recognized as one of Canada’s Leading Women in Infrastructure by both Women In Infrastructure and the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (C2P3).

Outside of work, Ms. Dicker is currently a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Ryerson University, where she devotes her time to the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural studies, and to the Ryerson Law Practice Program. Marni is also on the steering committee for the Ryerson Law Practice Program.

Ms. Dicker has an Honors business degree (B.A. Com), a Bachelor of Civil Laws (B.C.L) and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB), as well as being a recognized Corporate Director (IcD.D).

About Infrastructure Ontario (IO)

IO is a Crown agency of the Province of Ontario that works to deliver public benefits through partnerships with the private sector. IO delivers large, complex public infrastructure projects using a made-in-Ontario modern procurement and project management practice called Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP). IO also partners with the private sector to manage one of the largest real estate portfolios in Canada, provides municipalities and eligible public-sector clients with loans to renew public infrastructure, and leverages its private-sector expertise to advise the provincial public-sector clients on commercial transactions.

About the Women’s Executive Network (WXN)

WXN creates and delivers innovative networking, mentoring, professional and personal development to inform, inspire, connect and recognize our community of 19,000 smart women and their organizations in the pursuit of excellence. WXN enables partners and corporate members to become and to be recognized as employers of choice and leaders in the advancement of women.

Founded in 1997, WXN is Canada’s leading organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of women in management, executive, professional and board roles. WXN is a founding member of the Canadian Board Diversity Council, dedicated to increasing the diversity of Canada’s corporate boards. In the fall of 2008, WXN launched in Ireland, a first step in creating an international community of female leaders. More information and details are available at wxnetwork.com or top100women.ca.