As featured on Law360
At Canadian law firms, it generally takes an associate at least eight years to make partner. But Rachel Puma, a lawyer with the commercial real estate and development group at Robins Appleby LLP in Toronto, was promoted last month from associate to partner after just four years.
“I’ve always wanted to be a partner, but at first I didn’t expect it to be so quick,” she told Law360 Pulse.
However, over her last two years at the firm, Puma said not only did she put in the billable work for clients, but she took on a more managerial approach to the practice as well — such as trying to improve certain efficiencies within the practice group.
“I have wanted to be a lawyer since I was 6 years old,” she said. “In first grade, I would stay in from recess to do logic games with my teacher instead of going out and having a life. I’ve always been really, really interested in this kind of way of thinking. I’m very lucky that I came into a profession that I love.”
An Entrepreneurial Attitude
Puma began her legal career as a summer student at Robins Appleby before joining as an associate in 2019. She tried out tax work, trust and estates, wills, litigation, corporate and real estate work as an articling law student. In Canadian law, an articling student is a law school graduate who completes a training term — lasting 10 months in Ontario — of trying out different specialties after summering at a firm and then comes back as a lawyer in a particular field. She discovered her niche was helping clients through the complexities of the Ontario real estate market.
She now specializes in providing advice and counsel on commercial real estate law, including acquisitions, dispositions, financing and development of low-rise subdivision lands and condominiums. Her clients include financial Institutions and small local business landlords or tenants
