Sonya Wint-Blair, Jamaican lawyer, now licensed to practise in Canada, Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean.
-ContributedTORONTO, CANADA:
OVER THE years, the Law Society of Upper Canada and other law institutions has had an increasing number of candidates from the black community.
These candidates successfully fulfilled their Bar admission course requirements, making them eligible to practise law in Canada. The most recent candidate from our community to be called to the Bar is Jamaican-born Sonya Wint-Blair. Her office is located at 17 Chapel Street, Brampton, Ontario. She is a barrister and solicitor.
Wint-Blair graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1995 with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB), received a Certificate of Legal Education at Norman Manley Law School in Kingston in 1997. She migrated to Canada where she continued her studies and successfully met the requirements of the National Committee of Accreditation, in Ottawa in 2002.
TEST OF QUALIFICATION
This body tests the qualifications of foreign trained lawyers and determines whether they need to return to law school to take courses to meet the Canadian requirements, or simply take the National Committee Accreditation (NCA) exams.
Wint-Blair was required to sit NCA examinations in 2003 and was successful in all areas. These included Civil Procedure, Taxation, Administrative Law, Criminal Law, Commercial, Family Constitutional and Corporate Law.
Wint-Blair worked with Edmond Brown, Barrister and Solicitor in Brampton, where she gained further knowledge of the legal system of Canada. She became an articling student with one of Ontario's top criminal law firms, Pinkofskys on University Avenue, where she assisted in the conduct of defence cases in trial matters in Provincial and Superior court. She appeared in Ontario Court of Justice to argue motions, make submissions on sentence, set and confirmed trial dates, and conducted client interviews in preparation for the trial.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
Prior to migrating to Canada, Blair also worked as Judicial Clerk to the president of the Court of Appeal from 1997 through to 1998. She then became Crown Counsel in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Kingston from 1998 through to December 2001. She previously interned at the firm of Dunn, Cox Orrett and Ashenheim on Duke Street, Kingston, Jamaica's second largest law firm, from 1996 to 1997, and worked in the claims departments settling legal issues at the United General Insurance Company.
Wint-Blair is licensed to practise in Canada, Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean. She has over the years gained a vast experience in the field of law with adroitness that should be advantageous to her Canadian clientele.
LOVE FOR JOURNALISM
Asked if practising law was always her first career choice, Wint-Blair said: "I always wanted to become a journalist instead of a lawyer, but my father persuaded me to do law, saying I never stopped talking.
"Coming to Canada was a bit disconcerting to discover that even though I had been practising law in Jamaica for so many years, I had to qualify all over again when I moved here, but my trial experience did help in the end."
