Justin Nasseri won the inaugural OBA Civil Litigation Emerging Leader Award. At the time, he was the youngest-ever chair of this section. Immediately after that, he founded a firm which Benchmark just named Litigation Boutique of the Year. Justin has dozens of reported wins in major cases, has spoken at many CPD programs, and has published several chapters and articles since his 2013 call to the bar. He is well known for his mentorship, across many firms, many practice areas, and for lawyers both junior and senior to him. Many people would not be where they are today without his support.
The following was his speech at the OBA Civil Dinner, highlighting the importance of empowering junior lawyers and their contributions to making his new firm a success.
OBA Civil Litigation Emerging Leader Award 2025 Speech by Justin Nasseri
I'll open by certifying these remarks were not prepared by AI.
Let me start with some very important thank yous. Thank you to my lifelong friend, my mentor, Sarit, for that beautiful tribute. It is humbling to be introduced by one of the best to ever do it.
Thank you as well to a couple of other lifelong friends and mentors who joined Sarit in nominating me for this award, Shane D’Souza at McCarthy Tétrault and my former law partner Helen Richards of the Bank of Canada – one of my first friends ever in law school when I arrived in Toronto back in 2009.
Thank you to the OBA and the Civil Litigation section for the work it does in giving our profession a sense of community with events like tonight.
And on that note, congratulations to Mr. Frank Walwyn and thank you for sharing the evening with me. It is truly an honour to be on your ticket, sir.
Thank you to the incredible Ross Nasseri team. Some of them are here: my partners, including co-founder Mark; our managing partner, Jacqueline Cole; our senior partners, Eric Brousseau, Eric Block and Erin Pleet; and a very special shout out to my litigation clerk, Amanda Howstrawser, who has been the lifeblood of my practice since 2019. Thank you to every one of you and you know who you are, the lawyers who have honored me with your friendship and your support.
They say save the best thanks for last, so very special thank you to my wife, Samantha Pettinato. My superhero. She should be the one hoisting an award for the Herculean effort of tolerating me these years. And it’s no hyperbole when I tell you that anything worthwhile I’ve done is possible because of her unconditional love.
Turning to my remarks. This honour gave me pause to reflect on leadership. And leadership can mean a lot of things. But for me, the biggest lesson I’ve learned, the biggest tenet that I’ve tried to follow with fervor, is to relentlessly believe in and empower the people who come after me.
This has been the ingredient that has fueled the success of Ross Nasseri since my partner, Mark Ross, and I started this firm in 2021. And that ingredient presented itself to me and how Mark treated me when we did found the firm. He set the example for me.
We met as opposing counsel in 2016. We became fast friends. When we were talking about starting Ross Nasseri near the end of 2020, I was 33 years old, seven years out from call. Now we both knew we wanted to build a great litigation boutique, one in which we pride ourselves not only on excellent work product and service, but on investing in our people.
That investment didn’t just mean mentorship and training. It meant making our junior partners and our associates feel believed in. We would do that by encouraging and enabling them to break the barriers of age and year of call, to put them on the front lines of being great litigators, meaning not just getting into court and examining witnesses – that’s important – but also the client management, the administration, the developing a business.
Five years later, in a firm where our articling students draft better factums than I did as a second year, I’m proud to say we’ve done that and we’re not slowing down.
It started with Mark putting that principle into action. He believed in me. He trusted me. He empowered me. And a lot of people would have raised an eyebrow at the thought of sticking a 7 year call’s name on the door beside his and saying, “Carte blanche. Do what you have to do. Let’s build this.” Mark didn’t constrain me by age or year of call. His assessment was based on his view of my character, my work ethic, and my capabilities. He’s also the one that encourage me to set higher goals and to think big. He’s the one that was willing to listen to someone younger than him, less accomplished than him, with far less experience in business than him. That’s what I mean when I talk about investment and about empowerment and emulating that treatment has become our firm story.
Just about everything we've been able to accomplish as a team has come from our willingness to believe in our people and to promote them. And their ability to take that support and rise to the challenge and deliver every time.
I know it’s now commonplace to bemoan the eccentricities of Gen. Z. I think every generation will always reserve some criticism about the work ethic or engagement of the next. But I think this was true 10 years ago, and I think it will be true 10 years from now: if you take the time with the next generation of lawyers to support them, to elevate them, to promote them in public, to give them meaningful work, they will break barriers and they will show you that new things are possible.
When I look at my firm’s table tonight, I’m reminded of that with concrete examples. The evidence behind the submission, so to speak. Because I am not standing here if Jacqueline Cole, a 2014 call, doesn’t administer a master class recruitment program and evolve our firms tech infrastructure while being a full time successful trial lawyer. If Eric Brousseau, a 2015 call, is not mentoring our juniors with the wisdom and aplomb of a 30 year call while he’s quarterbacking the Public Order Emergency Commission. If Avi Bourassa, a 2016 call, does not take in hand one of my biggest clients in a bet-the-company case and administer cross-examinations that were so devastating they reminded me of the ones I used to watch Sarit do. If Jacob Klugsberg, a 2019 call, is not leading and winning a pitch for a major piece of public interest litigation we’re on for a public company. If Daniel Milton, a 2020 call, is not defeating the full legal might of a major municipality at a summary judgment motion we are retained for. And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I wouldn’t be standing here if my partner in crime Gordon Vance, a 2020 call, did not time and time again act more like a co-lead – and many of you have gotten to know him on my cases – than a junior across 50 files together, including 2 large trials and 4 appeals.
I had to trust these people and invest in them to deliver beyond the conventions of what you would expect from their age and stage in the feats I’ve described and many more. They accepted that trust and in turn they crushed it.
These are just some examples from my lived experience. There are many more at my firm and at all the firms in attendance tonight. The point being that in each successive generation, our profession, just as in any other profession or endeavor, has shown the ability to break barriers and do more. And to do more quicker, better, cleaner. We’ve just got to invest the belief and support them to do so. And so to that end, please join me in raising the glass. It is a pleasure and privilege to toast the next generation of lawyers as they continue to break barriers and show us what’s possible.
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