How this banking lawyer took his career to the next level

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Trevor Noronha, a senior counsel with  Toronto Dominion Bank, developed an interest in a growing area of law: derivatives. These complex financial instruments are, essentially, contracts in which investors have agreed to buy or sell a particular asset in the future at a predetermined price. And they played a central role in the economic meltdown. “As a result, regulators started looking at derivatives,” says Noronha. “They decided that there would have to be more regulations.”

The demand for expertise in this area of law was about to skyrocket. So in 2010, Noronha took action: he enrolled in the banking-law specialization of the Osgoode Professional LLM, a rigorous graduate program that he could complete on a part-time basis.

The program turned Noronha into a master of the derivatives market. He published a paper on the credit default swap, a specific type of derivative that helped trigger the collapse of the housing market. During class, he worked alongside other lawyers who shared his enthusiasm. “To this day,” he says, “there are people I keep in touch with.”

The program had another lasting effect. “I realized that I no longer wanted to practise in-house,” says Noronha. “I wanted to practise on my own.” And so, last year, he left TD to start a solo practice in capital markets and derivatives. As he builds up his new firm, he also works with McCarthy Tétrault LLP as embedded counsel to one of its clients. “The LLM changed the course of my career,” says Noronha. “It invigorated me.”