Leadership Series Episode 27 with Hena Singh
This week Katya is joined by Hena Singh! Hena is a partner at Singh Lamarche LLP Workplace Advocates located in downtown Toronto. In addition, Hena is a mediator, certified Workplace Investigator, certified Compliance Officer and has a B.A., a Masters Degree in Psychology and an L.L.B.
Hena assists employers and employees with workplace issues of all types — from the contemplation of an employment relationship, to assisting in its continuation, as well as termination. She has the experience of having conducted hundreds of workplace investigations for a variety of organizations — in the public and private sectors, for both provincially and federally regulated organizations.
Hena is the author of the book A Practical Guide to Conducting Workplace Investigations and also the co-author of the book A Practical Guide to the Law of Terminations in Ontario. As a result of her formal credentials and extensive experience, Hena is a frequent presenter on various employment law, human rights and workplace investigation issues, and is recognized for providing her clients with practical and tailored solutions to employment issues.
In this episode, Hena discusses what drew her to a career in law, her law school experience, what employment law is, and advice for future and current law students!
Katya Rowely 00:00
Welcome back, everyone to law school life and beyonds leadership series. My name is Katya and I’m the host of this podcast. On today’s episode, I am joined by Hena Singh. Hena is an employment lawyer and investigator in Toronto at her law firm Singh Lamarche LLP. Really excited to have her on the show today, because we haven’t had anyone speak to employment or labor laws have yet. And so I’m really excited to pick her brain about this field of law. So with that, thank you so much Hena, for agreeing to come on the show today.
Hena Singh 00:28
Thank you for inviting me.
Katya Rowely 00:29
So my first question is always the origin story. What drew you to a career in law?
Hena Singh 00:36
You know, I have a bit of a weird or funny backstory to this, I actually started down the path of becoming a psychologist, oh, and I was finishing up my master’s degree. And I was in the process of applying to do my PhD when my sister who’s now a lawyer, but at the time was a third year law student, she actually sat me down and tried to convince me and she was successful, that I would be better suited for law, quote, and as I do in many situations involving my sister, I trusted her blindly. But the reality is, is I didn’t know what lawyers did, or what like, practicing law really was. I knew that lawyers argued a lot. And I was right. But, but I, but I didn’t know much else. And I’m really glad I listened to her.
Katya Rowely 01:24
Nice. And how was your law school experience,
Hena Singh 01:28
I had a really great law school experience. I was. So I’m from Windsor. And I went to Windsor law. And that was, I felt like I had like, kind of the the home game advantage. The whole time I was in law school, because I had my, my family, I had my friends, I had everyone there. And so I had my home. And so it was really great, I’d made some really great friends. You don’t realize they say this in law school. But you don’t realize that the people that you meet in law school, these are these end up being some of your closest friends in your career thereafter. And they’re the ones that refer work to you. They’re the ones that you’re going to basketball games with, you’re the ones you’re having drinks with after work, or, you know, whatever it’s spending, walking your dogs together. It’s it’s, you don’t realize that at the time that the the connections that you’re making, or breaking in certain circumstances, or last a career. And I was I was really lucky to have made some friends that I still keep in very, very, very close contact with. And I really enjoyed my law school experience.
Katya Rowely 02:43
That’s awesome. And I, I’ve thought about that, too, coming into law school, it’s not like undergrad or high school, because these people kind of just disappear. But law school like these are your future colleagues, you will see these people in work at some point or another so that it’s really cool. And it’s important to pay mind to and not to view law school as a huge like networking experience. But it kind of is like you need to make sure that you’re tolerable because you are going to be working with these people at some point. So that’s like, that’s a really cool aspect of law school. I think
Hena Singh 03:12
I once I did a moot against against a couple of people. And we had had an agreed statement of facts, or no, I did a trial or anyways, it was one something that involves some sort of practice litigation. And we’ve had an agreed statement of facts. And we had agreed upon a number of other things prior to engaging in this in this mood. And one of the people that I that I was against, totally broke our agreement during this thing. And I was so upset. And I remember, that was my third year of law school. And it’s now 15 years later. And I am I still would not refer a file to this person. Because I was like integrity is all we have. And you you as a lawyer, we fight. And we fight hard. And we argue and we we are positional, but we need to maintain that integrity. And I think as law students, we can kind of lose sight of how much impact our behavior is in law school, how that can impact the rest of our career. No, that’s
Katya Rowely 04:23
so true. And they completely backdoored you. Yeah, totally. So then when you were in law school, did you have any idea what type of law you wanted to go into? Or was that something you figured out after the fact?
Hena Singh 04:35
I thought many things. But not once before. I summered at a Bay Street firm, not once did I think employment law, okay. Or labor labor law for that matter. And so it was it was mostly criminal or litigation that I was interested in and I got hired by at rite as a summer student and then did my Earthling at a sister Bay Street firm. And I wanted to do two litigation rotations. And they said, No, you got to do something else. I was like, what’s the closest thing to litigation, and they said employment. So I ended up doing an employment rotation first, and never let like I just did employment for all of my articles. I did it for all my summer. It was just a really good connection with the group and the area of law. So I kind of went in a bit blind into employment law, and it just worked out really, really well. And then in my third year, I took all the courses and really kind of buckled down on committing to employment law. But through law school, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Katya Rowely 05:46
That is really cool that it clicked that summer, and you were able to commit that third year to employment law. And it’s just been a perfect match since like, what a dance nice feeling.
Hena Singh 05:55
Yeah, it was a good, it was a good fit. And I was glad that I found it. So really, sometimes people are like in the middle of their career five years out, and they’re like, Oh, I hate litigation or a personal injury, or I hate real estate, and then all of a sudden, they’re starting again. And so I was lucky to have found it. So early on.
Katya Rowely 06:12
Do you mind just describing what employment law is, please?
Hena Singh 06:16
Yeah, it’s basically all facets of the law relating to non unionized workplaces. Okay. So for unionized workplaces, it’s called labor law. But But the most important thing, but I’m called a labor lawyer all the time. And I only practice in employment law. I did labor at the at the Bay Street firm, but I haven’t done it since. But people often confused the term, but labor is the unionized context. And employment is the non unionized workplaces, okay. And so what we do at my firm, single Marsh is we help we help with all elements of the employment relationship. So we help employers and employees with everything from hiring, to firing, and everything in between. Wow. And so most of our cases, as like, as a firm are dealing with wrongful dismissal, so people get terminated. Okay, and then they’re negotiating severance packages. But myself, the majority of the work that I do is workplace investigations. So this is where there’s some sort of like conflict in the workplace that involves one or more humans, and the employer or their counsel, reaches out to me to come in and figure out what happened. So I’m a Fact Finder. And I make determinations as to someone’s behavior, whether it’s in law, whether it’s harassment, discrimination, violence, fraud, theft, net, you name it. And so I’ll say here’s what happened. And it is or is not, harassment, it is or is not fraud, it is or is not sexual harassment, or whatever it is I’m dealing with at the time. That’s cool. It’s a very, very neat area of law.
Katya Rowely 08:11
Yeah. How did you even get involved in that?
Hena Singh 08:15
So I left the sister firm, that I was at the Bay Street firm, to go to a boutique employment law firm. And they did a lot of investigations there. So I had my first experience with investigations there. And there was a huge change in the law. It just happened to be that as I’m getting really interested in investigations, there was this, like, huge change in the law, that there was the I’ll try not to bore you here. But there was the addition of the definition of harassment and violence and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. And it required employers to do investigations when there’s allegations made of workplace harassment, workplace sexual harassment, workplace violence. And so all of a sudden, investigations blew up, because now it was, it was a requirement for employers to do these investigations. And so I’d already had an interest, I’d already started doing investigations. And it was just you know, if you already if the law changes, and you already have a foot in the door with with respect to a certain area of law, you just kind of Yeah, I kind of run with it, and it goes crazy. And it did my career just kind of took off from there. And it was really, it was really awesome. It was it was great to kind of have that new pathway into something that I really enjoyed. And I think it’s something that I’m good at, and I was able to discover it and really thought yeah, it was a good fit for me.
Katya Rowely 09:54
That’s so nice. And so cool. Well, yeah, yeah. And just personal preference. Did you Like working as more of a before the investigation role as more of a labor lawyer with unions or employment lawyer, what a pros and cons.
Hena Singh 10:09
I got the Bay Street firm. I did both, I would say probably primarily more labor. And then I went to the the boutique employment law firm that did the investigations as well, and dropped the labor because there’s too many conflicts if you do investigations and do labor, and I won’t bore you with it, but there’s just too many conflicts, you kind of have to elect to either do labor law or do investigations, and we elected to do investigations. And that was that.
Katya Rowely 10:38
Okay, okay, so you don’t miss labour law, then.
Hena Singh 10:41
I don’t. It’s interesting, too. And there’s a lot more litigation and a lot more like access to, to advocacy in labor law than it is in employment law, my experience, but nothing beats doing investigation. So I would, I would drop labor law to do that any day of the week.
Katya Rowely 11:02
I know, that’s really cool that you’re in a factfinder role now. Yeah. That is awesome. Yeah. And so then what prompted you to transition from being a sole practitioner in the base free form? And then were you a sole practitioner in one point? Yes. Yes. So then what made you I guess, like, kind of jump around from big firm to sole protection practitioner to starting your own firm? Yeah.
Hena Singh 11:24
So what I’ve done, I’ve done most of the transitions that someone can do, yeah. I started at the sister firm, stayed there for a couple of years. And then something happened. We don’t need to get into the details. But something happened that really went against my moral compass. Okay. And I ended up leaving quite abruptly and going to this smaller boutique employment law firm. Yeah. And so. So it was just, it just happened to be that and it was also at this stage in my career, where I wanted more advocacy experience and exposure to clients and what have you. And so this move to the boutique firm was a very natural progression, but it was it happened a lot quicker because of this moral issue. And, and so it’s always there. I was there for a couple of years. And then I got seconded to go work with, with a client. And so I was there with the client for almost a year. So I basically had done the in house experience Yeah, to, which was also incredible. And so I’m lucky to have had all these various exposures to figure out where I belong. And so so then, after I finished the second meant, they, my employer, at the time wanted to adjust, make adjustments to my contract that I didn’t agree with. And we couldn’t work through the differences. And so we just, I had said, Oh, it’s a good time for me to start my own practice, because I felt like I was able to, I was ready to do it. And we couldn’t figure out how to deal with our differences in opinion of our of the contract. Okay. And so I started my own practice. And I, I, I don’t know how I knew. But my partner, my business partner, now Cedric, he had, he worked at a he worked with me at the Bay Street firm. And then he went to a different boutique employment law firm. And we I don’t know, we always just kept in touch. And we were always use the person I called when I wanted to bounce something off of someone else. And vice versa. And at some point, it was just like, maybe this is a good fit for us. Yeah. And being a sole practitioner is a lot of stress and, and pressure. Because you don’t have anyone else you can lean on. Yeah, it’s all I mean, it’s also great. Because you can make all the decisions yourself, and it’ll have any. Yeah. Anyone that has a dissenting opinion about what you should do about ABC issues. But yeah, so him and I ended up you know, kind of joking around about it. Yeah. And then at some point it was you know, are you serious? Are you serious? Yeah, I’m serious. Yeah, I’m serious. And then it was like boom. And next thing you know, with like, short runway to plan we were single Marsh
Katya Rowely 14:32
well, and so you did you summer with him at the base before where you just met him? Did you so all because we’re on the same path. That is so cool. He
Hena Singh 14:41
so we were on the same path. There. So funny enough, and I’m trying to be careful with my words here. But so we summer we summer together. He ends up in litigation, I ended up in employment law and I left I went to an employment law firm. And he called me at some point and said he was still at the Bay Street firm, and said, like, I need to make a change. Yeah. And he was thinking about leaving law. Wow. Okay. And I’d said, Don’t leave law go into employment law. And so he ended up going into employment law after I had said, like, don’t this is you, there’s another, there’s another way. And so he ended up going into employment law. And that was really was, yeah, that was, I think it was a big conversation for both of us.
Katya Rowely 15:33
That’s really, really cool. how that worked out. And now it’s firm forever. Like you were happy in this role.
Hena Singh 15:39
Yeah. Yeah. He’s, he’s my, he’s my business partner for life. That’s stuck with me now. That’s,
Katya Rowely 15:47
that’s really cool. That all worked out. Yeah. And so my next question is asking, what does success look like to you, because I interviewed actually one of the deans of my law school. And she brought up such an excellent point, she said, earlier in your career, you need to decide or define what success looks like to you. She’s like, some people, it’s going to be the big Bay Street firm, some people it’s going to be a sole practitioner. And she said, that’s like a really good way to drown out the noise, you can hear everyone’s input, but then you really need to figure out what it is that you’re looking for in your career. So we’re kind of doing your thing by ask all of my guests what success looks like to them.
Hena Singh 16:25
Success has changed quite a bit for me, and how I define success has changed drastically for me, my, you know, the original conversation with my sister before I even thought to go to law school. And what, how she defined what success would look like after law school is very different. And what kind of sucked me into going to law school is different than why I’m still in law. And what I’m looking for now, in my career, you know, I started off, I didn’t, I didn’t really know when I was in law school, like, what what is exiting law school, what is success? And, you know, a lot of people were telling me and in my social circle, there was a lot of this, like, being street pressure. And I had always had my my mindset to, like, have sing and sing with my sister who’s now not a thing. But she, yeah. And so I was always like, Whatever I do, I want to come back and be with my sister. And we’re going to open this practice together and probably fight a lot. And but yeah, practice great law together. And so, but I got this, I got this pressure to go to beach Street. Because it was just kind of like pure pressure of like, this is the thing to do. And if you have the ability to get there, that’s what you should do. It’s what you should do.
Katya Rowely 17:54
The same still the same way?
Hena Singh 17:56
Yeah, totally. I know. I know. And I don’t know if it’s right. And yet I did it. And I’ve, I’ve I’ve built a career from it. So I don’t know if it’s wrong, either. But it’s a
Katya Rowely 18:09
fact. And you you obviously made this decision. Because a you were capable of it. And you got the position and I think a shoehorn you into an awesome career. And then some people they get there, and they’re like, oh, maybe no, that’s fine.
Hena Singh 18:22
Yeah. And then I had people in my year who had summered and said, Forget this, this isn’t for me and people in my articling Wow, who said forget this, like, I’m, this isn’t for me. And so yeah, so it could land you in the wrong place, if you’re kind of buy into that, but I bought into it. And once I bought into it, I would like doubled and tripled down on it. I was like, I’m getting this job. If I’m doing this, I’m getting this job. And so that was success, then. And then success was making a change for my clients. Once I started getting access at the boutique law firm success was, you know, my clients lean on me and I’m the authority. Yeah. And that was like, and then and like winning cases or, or settling cases and have a watching the result and watching the impact. And that was huge. It was huge. For my confidence. It was it was huge in terms of what I felt success was. And then, you know, at some point, success feels like it’s making money. And sometimes success feels like you’re building a name like the fact that my law firm has a presence in the in the legal community is a really big deal to me. I’ll tell you a little tidbit. I had a I have a cousin who I’m very close with and he was he was with his friend in BC. And his friend found out that his mom had been terminated abruptly and was quite shaken by what had happened. And my cousin says, you know, like, this is the area of law that my cousin does. And he’s like, yeah, I’ve got this friend in Toronto, and I’m going to give him a call and see what he thinks. And that he calls that, that friend, and that friend says, I’ve got an employment lawyer that I’m going to send you to her name is Hena Singh, I’m sitting with my cousin in BC. That’s amazing. And in my cousin said he was like, his proudest moment. And quite frankly, it was one of my proudest moments of my career. Yeah, to have this, like, you know, two people across the conversation across the country. Yeah, saying you should talk to this girl. And one of them being my cousin, which loved him, but he’s not. He’s not he’s not referring to me for any other reason than like, those who that’s all I know. Yeah. But this other lawyer saying that was just was a big moment in my career. And that, in that moment, that’s how I define success, like success was having the name that someone in a in a really rough spot. Someone says, trust this girl.
Katya Rowely 21:20
That’s really, really cool. What a compliment.
Hena Singh 21:24
Yeah, yeah. And now, success is fighting through barriers, and, and, and norms to create, like work life balance for myself. And not feeling trapped in being what a traditional successful lawyer is, which is working ridiculous hours and being so focused on money that you miss your kids birthday parties. Yeah. And that’s, I will, I went down that path. Thankfully, not. When I had my my daughter, she sent me straight. But before that I was missing. I was missing big things. I was missing big events, and things that were meaningful to me, because law was taking over and the hours and the work was taking over. And so success now means that balance of like being there for your clients and being responsive and being present and being available and being the authority. But also being a mom being a friend, being a daughter, being a sister being a whatever, and having integrity in those relationships, because you found that balance. Yeah, that’s the most important to me. Think to me right now.
Katya Rowely 22:43
What a nice place to be in. That is awesome. Yeah. And would you ever transition to family law with your sister? Is that a hard?
Hena Singh 22:52
part? No. It’s a hard No, I, you know, I, our personalities are such that I would have thought we would have ended up in opposite places. Like I thought she would end up in some sort of like, corporate or employment law job. And I would end up in family law, because our personalities are such that we should, we should have been in opposite roles. But her and I will never have a firm together and we’re probably better off for it.
Katya Rowely 23:16
It’s probably told me to work with family, it’s just never a good idea to find that you use your psych degree, like at all in your practice.
Hena Singh 23:26
I don’t think that there’s a day that goes by that. I don’t know. Okay, well, well. A lot of being a lawyer. And I think that this is, like, really sound advice for people going into law from law school is Oh, great. A lot of a lot of being a lawyer, especially when you’re like client facing is listening and being attentive and acknowledging what someone’s going through. And the number of times that I’ve said, like, you know, hung up the phone going, I’m you know, I’m not your therapist, and then I’m like, I kind of am. Yeah, because I’m you I’m the the person. I’m not sorry, and I shouldn’t say that, but I’m the I’m front facing on probably one of the hardest times of your career. What career or life. Yeah, you know, I’m facing people in times where I have usually not in times of joy, and so they’re coming to me because they’re, they’re stuck or they need my advice. And sometimes, they also need an ear and a shoulder. Yeah. And, you know, it’s, it’s interesting, because there’s been times when I’ve had clients, and I want to give them like a taxi meter. So they can watch how much money they’re spending. Yeah, as as they’re like, venting to me or, or, or kind of whatever and at some point, I realized, there no one’s gonna About the bills like that, whatever, whatever it is we’re doing is working, right? It’s not this isn’t I don’t what what I see as value is sitting down and giving legal advice and being like, like pop like go. Yeah. But the reality is, is that legal advice is very, very small part of client management. Okay. And so I use my site there, and I’m also an investigator. So I’m using my psych degree 100% of the time when my psych degrees, I should say, 100% of the time when I’m doing investigations as well. Yeah, it’s very it’s ever present in my practice.
Katya Rowely 25:37
Yeah, I imagine, especially like an employment law. Again, like you’re dealing with people at a very emotional time, family law as well. Most of the situations are emotional. So psych would be extremely relevant in those cases.
Hena Singh 25:48
Yeah. Yeah. And understanding personalities and differences and seeing different angles. And yeah, it’s a it’s very, it’s a very useful tool for me.
Katya Rowely 26:00
And do you have any other advice for incoming law students or just graduating law students.
Hena Singh 26:09
Any other advice, I would say, keep your mind open. Your your career can take many twists and turns. And keep your mind open, get get if you’re not sure about what you want to do, or even if you are sure, but what you want to do keep your mind open in terms of figuring out or in terms of figuring out a career path you don’t ever close your mind off from from opportunities to learn more about what you want different career paths, or that you can take and try different things. If something’s not working, don’t feel stuck in where where you are, like, move on if you’re feeling unhappy, or stock or depressed, which is what ends up happening to an enormous number of lawyers is finding another way, like I I basically covered off most facets of legal professions, having been big firms small firm, in house, and then its sole practitioner, and then having my own firm. And so yeah, that I and the way I was able to do that was to remain open minded and to be able to, to leap when it wasn’t right anymore. And instead of staying and feeling stuck, this is I’m not trying to tell people to like bail on your your jobs that the first time it becomes uncomfortable. But at some point, if you’re sitting at your desk, you know, head in hand going, what am I doing here, I’m miserable. It might be time to think about it, a different move. And also, to make sure that you constantly ask yourself, what is success in this moment? Because the number of times I have heard, the money’s not worth it. And yet, people sit and stay and don’t make the change or don’t readjust the pressures they put on themselves to accommodate for their own changes, and needs. That’s Yeah, taking care of yourself. And like checking in with yourself. throughout your career is what I think is the most important piece of advice. always pick a moment to reflect on what you need.
Katya Rowely 28:44
Well, that’s awesome advice. Thank you so much.
Hena Singh 28:46
Thank you. It’s so fun.
Katya Rowely 28:48
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Hena. This was really great to you and talk to you. Yeah, you too. Thanks. And that concludes today’s episode. Thank you everyone for tuning in. And be sure to tune in next week for law school life and beyonds next episode of the leadership series.
