Barry Segal
Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP
When Barry Segal first played electric guitar in front of an audience, at 14 years old, his performance was, in his words, “absolutely terrible.” But the crowd, a few dozen teenagers at a house party, still had fun. They especially enjoyed his rendition of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. It felt good. “I saw that people liked it,” he recalls. “And that gave me a rush of adrenaline.”
Now 47, Segal is a tax partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. For the past decade, he’s been the lead guitarist for Notorious Road, a classic-rock and rhythm-and-blues band whose lineup boasts lawyers from three downtown firms — Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, Gowling WLG and Norton Rose. The group is a fixture at charity events across the city. And last year, they won the top prize at AIDSbeat’s battle of the bands.
For Segal, performing live music offsets his otherwise restrained disposition. “My personality has always been conservative,” he says. “I love the way the guitar allows me to be expressive and let myself go in the moment. The guitar becomes part of who I am.”
This story is from our Summer 2018 Issue.
Photography by Daniel Ehrenworth, makeup by Shawna Lee