How this in-house counsel expanded her knowledge of the law

In 2015, about five years into her legal career, Michelle Jackson-Forbes noticed that her workload had become increasingly complex. As the general counsel of a debt-collection company, she’d had to take on responsibilities that fell outside the original scope of the job. “I was running into more and more occasions when the right course of action wasn’t clear,” she says, “and I had to reach out to external counsel for advice.”

To keep up with the demands of the role, Jackson-Forbes knew that she needed to deepen her understanding of the core practice areas in the business world, including corporate transactions and contract law. So she enrolled in the business law specialization of the Osgoode Professional LLM, a rigorous graduate program that she could complete on a part-time basis. “It was very flexible,” she says. “I was able to keep working full-time right through it.”

To her delight, the program blended legal theory with practical training. Her coursework often took the form of mock work assignments that she could work through under the guidance of an instructor who had real-world experience in the field.

Today, Jackson-Forbes is an assistant vice-president and senior counsel at the investment and insurance company Ivari. Her job requires expertise in contracts, compliance and many other areas of business law. Thankfully, the knowledge she acquired in the professional master’s program continues to serve her well. When puzzling over a legal problem, for instance, the perfect solution will sometimes appear in her mind, seemingly out of nowhere. “And then it hits me,” she says. “It’s from Osgoode.”