How this defence lawyer stepped up her game

In 2017, Jessica Sickinger was ready to take her career to the next level. After 12 years in criminal defence, she’d built a solid practice, but had a desire to take on the most serious, complicated cases. As she puts it: “I wanted to move up a bit in the world.”

To make that happen, she enrolled in the criminal law and procedure specialization of the Osgoode Professional LLM, a rigorous graduate program that she could complete on a part-time basis. In the classroom, she found a refreshing diversity of perspectives. Instead of being surrounded solely by defence lawyers, she learned alongside prosecutors, police officers and judges. This offered an invaluable window into how other actors in the justice system think.

Through coursework, Sickinger honed her legal skill set, in both research and written advocacy. “It was super helpful to stretch my brain,” she says. “The material was also interesting.”

The program has had a real-world impact on her practice. “I’ve started to take on more appellate work,” she says. “I can’t think of anything else I could’ve done that would’ve been as helpful to my career.”