When Jeffrey Singer was elected chairman of Stikeman Elliott three years ago, he had no idea what he was getting into. At the time, he was about to take the reins as managing partner of the Global 200 firm's Toronto office—a major career milestone that set the stage for helming the entire firm. But he never expected that with almost 30 years of practicing law under his belt, taking over the top job would entail rolling up his sleeves to draft documents usually assigned to students or first-year associates. Or for that matter, trying to figure out how to steer the firm through not only a pandemic but its busiest year ever with most people still working from home.

"Getting up and talking to people and letting them know that we were always going to put them first and have their backs as long as we possibly could—that was something I never thought I'd have to do," Singer told Law.com International. "What started as a very scary thing was turned into something that really brought us all together."