Sommer Blackman qualified to practice law in Ontario and New York
July 4, 2022
For Sommer Blackman, failure is never final.
It makes her even stronger as was evident after she failed the New York State Bar law exam twice by one and four points.
“One of the things about my journey in law is my resilience,” said Blackman who is qualified to practice in Ontario. “If I start something, I will finish it no matter how long it takes.”
The third time was a charm though it was very challenging.
Blackman held two jobs while studying part-time.
“It was difficult because the New York Bar exam is quite demanding,” she pointed out. “You can take time off to ensure you are well prepared for the exam. I didn’t have the luxury of doing that. I had to work. Because I did not attend an American law school for undergraduate studies, some of the concepts were new. While law is universal, there were some things I had to learn.”
For four months leading up to last February’s exam, Blackman worked from nine to five, took a one-hour break and then studied for six hours.
She passed the Bar exam in Ontario in 2014.
Blackman said there are some fundamental differences between the Ontario and New York tests.
“In Ontario, it is multiple choice and open book while the one in New York is not open book and not all multiple choice,” she noted. “Both are held over two days. In New York, one day is all essay writing, covering about 15 topics none of which you know you are going to be tested on. You have to know all the topics. I think the New York exam is more challenging just because of the sheer capacity of information that you are required to memorize and just know.”
With an interest in the arts, Blackman followed her parents’ suggestion to study law that requires continuous learning which she embraces.
“When people think about lawyers, the first thing that comes to mind are practitioners in the areas of criminal, family or business law,” she said. “I was intrigued by intellectual property and entertainment law once I was introduced to that. Helping people protect their brand name, singers protect their music and authors protect their books appeal to me. Those are things that make me interested in the law.”
After finishing her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto in 2007, she pursued her law degree at Cardiff University School of Law & Politics.
“When I told people I was going to Cardiff, their response was, ‘Why’?” said Blackman who, in 2019, started ‘Creative Rights’ that is a free workshop series for creative industry personnel. “The Canadian transcript for school incorrectly showed zero for many of my grades. Instead of reaching out to me and asking for an updated one, they went on to the next person. That was heartbreaking, but I refused to allow that major error to stop me from going to law school.
“I turned to England and was looking at different schools when Cardiff popped up. It is renowned for research that I am interested in. They also provide music law as a course and that appealed to me. Music law is not something that is always provided at law schools. I also wanted to explore something new outside Canada.”
In May 2020, Blackman completed a Master of Law at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Franklin Pierce Law School that has been ranked in the Top 10 for intellectual property by U.S News & World Report for 30 consecutive years since the rankings began.
During the program, she was a student-attorney in the Intellectual Property and Transactions Clinic, helping clients negotiate licensing deals and securing trademarks and copyright protection.
Blackman was also the first LLM student to work as an editor for IDEA that is the Franklin Pierce Centre for Intellectual Property Law Review.
“That experience improved my writing and critical thinking skills and helped increase the breadth of my knowledge in Intellectual Property topics,” she said. “It also highlighted my ability to multi-task and served as an example of my leadership skills. I was honoured to take on this role and help create a path for future LLMs to immerse themselves in UNH’s scholarly journals.”
Blackman planned to return to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to practice law after completing her graduate degree.
However, the best-laid plans sometimes go awry.
An interview with a midsize law firm in March 2020 was cancelled after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
“I was going come back home only if I had a job,” she said. “That didn’t happen and I decided to go to New York in June 2020. I didn’t have a job there and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to find something.”
She was right.
A family friend in New York, who is an immigration lawyer, set up phone calls for Blackman with some of his networks in entertainment and intellectual property law.
On her fourth day in ‘The Big Apple’, she secured a part-time Associate Attorney position with Grant Attorneys at Law that is a boutique business and intellectual property law firm in Manhattan providing a wide range of specialist services to corporate, commercial and professional clients.
“After I obtained that position, I thought if I could do this in the United States, I am already a qualified lawyer in Ontario and I could open up my own firm to help people in my community,” she said.
Blackman Law remotely represents entertainment and intellectual property law clients.
Since September 2021, Blackman has also been a part-time Associate Attorney at Jean-Louis Law that offers legal support to creatives and entrepreneurs.
With an interest in music and the creative arts, it is not surprising that she gravitated to entertainment law.
Introduced to the piano at age five and classically trained, Blackman’s immigrant parents exposed her at a young age to Trinidad & Tobago’s arts and culture.
They took her and older sister Jewelle Blackman, an actor/musician who landed her first leading role on Broadway this year, to RCM concerts, steel pan shows and Caribbean Carnival events.
“We attended all of the different elements of diverse cultural events that were available in Toronto,” Blackman, who has played mas’ in Toronto, Trinidad and Barbados, said. “There was also a lot of music played in our home.”
She also played the tenor and alto saxophone and steelpan, but took a liking to the piano.
“It is a very elegant instrument and I love the different moods that can be derived from playing it, whether you are playing softly or crisply or you are intentionally slowing down,” Blackman noted. “It embodies different moods and I realized that after I stopped playing and started listening to pianists from around the world.”
During a two-month study abroad trip to Capetown in 2008, she was introduced to the music of late South African jazz pianist and composer Moses Taiwa Molelekwa who played with Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba. He died in 2001 at age 27.
“Learning about him and listening to his music was so enlightening and that is what brought home to me that this is the feeling that I exuded when I played,” Blackman said.
Molelekwa isn’t the only person who has inspired the bilingual Ontario Bar Association member.
Dillon and Bernice Blackman have also been instrumental in their daughter’s growth and success.
He was a provincial government mediator/arbitrator while the family matriarch was Vice-President of Student Success & Enrolment Services at Seneca College. They are retired.
“My dad’s tenacity for helping others resolve conflict, I think, spoke to me,” Blackman, who volunteered with Black Pearls Community Services, said. “Even though he didn’t discuss what he did at home, I knew what he was involved in and I asked questions. I knew the work he did was important because it was labour law. I found the work he did to be very inspiring because it impacted other people’s livelihood. Growing up with mom, it was all about education. I think that is where my interest in education came from and understanding that learning can be fun.”
Does she plan to return to the GTA in the near future to practice law?
“Right now, I will stay in the U.S as I think I am getting some really great experience in the areas of entertainment, trademark and copyright law,” said Blackman who loves travelling and plans to attend the 2023 Trinidad Carnival. “Because my interest is in music law, the industry here is a bit wider in terms of opportunities and the client base.”
