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Yola S. Ventresca

@yolaventresca

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Managing Partner @lernerslawyers
Litigator • Workplace Investigator
WXN Top 100 • Canadian Lawyer Top 25 • Law • Leadership • Governance
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I am honoured to share that I have been nominated for Canadian Lawyer Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers (Business).

I am deeply grateful to my team and our wider community for the passion and dedication you bring to this work every day.

Your support helps us to accelerate thoughtful, positive change across the legal landscape.

Voting link: https://surveys.keymedia.com/s3/049fefe67d68 by @yolaventresca

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6 months ago

Canadian Lawyer has named me one of its Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada for 2026.

I am enormously grateful for the recognition, but I have been thinking just as much about the word itself.

Whatever influence I have today was not built alone. It came from people @lernerslawyers who gave me difficult work, trusted my judgment, opened doors, advocated for me when I was not in the room and gave me opportunities before the outcome was guaranteed.

Those decisions matter enormously in a career. I know how much they mattered in mine.

Thank you to Canadian Lawyer, and congratulations to the other members of this year’s Top 25.

I have been thinking a great deal about what influence asks of us once we have it. More on that soon. Full story here: https://Inkd.in/ gTfKX48d by @yolaventresca

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2 months ago

Power is an interesting word. The longer I lead, the less I think of it as something a person holds, and the more I think of it as something a person can use.

I am honoured to be named one of WXN Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 for 2026.

For me, the most meaningful expression of power is the ability to create possibility for someone else. It is deciding who gets the stretch assignment, whose voice is heard in the room, who is trusted before the answer is obvious, and whose name is spoken when an opportunity arises.

I have been fortunate throughout my career to have people do that for me, and I have become increasingly conscious of the responsibility to do the same for others.

That is what makes this recognition especially meaningful.

Thank you to WXN for the honour, and congratulations to the remarkable women recognized in this year’s Top 100. I am proud to be among you.

#WXN100 #CanadasMostPowerfulWomen by @yolaventresca

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a month ago

Recognition is something other people give you.

Responsibility is what you do with it. by @yolaventresca

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3 days ago

The recognitions this fall have made me reflect on how I got here. The honest answer includes a great deal of other people's trust.

If you are early in your career and feel as though you are learning the rules as you go, you are not alone, and you are not behind. Many of the people you admire started exactly there.

And if you are further along, someone near you is likely waiting for the kind of chance you were once given. It is worth noticing who. by @yolaventresca

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7 days ago

We often use "power" and "influence" as if they mean the same thing. They don't.

Power can be handed to you. It comes with a title, a role, a seat at the table. It tells people you're allowed to be in the room.

Influence is different. It's whether anyone leans in when you speak. Whether you can shift the direction of a conversation, change a mind, or bring people along with you. No institution can give you that. You earn it through trust, consistency, and showing up for people when it counts.

I've seen people with every title imaginable who couldn't move a room, and people with no formal authority at all who changed everything around them. That difference has shaped how I think about leadership. by @yolaventresca

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12 days ago

Three recognitions arrived this September: Canadian Lawyer's Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers, WXN's Top 100 Most Powerful Women, and Best Lawyers in Canada's 2027 Lawyer of the Year in Medical Negligence for London and Windsor.

I am deeply grateful for all three, and mindful of the responsibility those words carry. They prompted me to write about the people who took chances on me before I had proven anything, and about what it means now that I am one of the people deciding whose potential gets the opportunity to become proof.

The full piece is at the link in my bio. by @yolaventresca

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18 days ago

Over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to work alongside remarkable women leaders in law, business, healthcare, education, and the non-profit sector.

What has struck me most is not simply the growing number of women in leadership positions.

It is the way many are redefining leadership itself.

For generations, women were often expected to adapt themselves to existing leadership models. Increasingly, I am seeing talented women build teams, organizations, and careers that reflect their own values, priorities, and vision of success.

They are proving that high performance and empathy can coexist.

That ambition and authenticity are not opposites.

And that strong cultures are built not despite caring about people, but because of it. At the same time, this progress raises an important question.

If so many talented women are choosing to shape leadership on their own terms, what does that tell us about the systems they have been navigating?

The conversation is no longer about whether women can lead. That has been proven many times over.

The challenge now is ensuring that our institutions and leadership structures evolve alongside the people who are changing them.

#WomenInLeadership
#WomenInBusiness
#WomenInLaw
#Leadership
#WorkplaceCulture taken in London, Ontario by @yolaventresca

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4 months ago

Growing up in a Lebanese family, I learned early that culture shapes far more than traditions. It shapes how we see the world, how we build community, and how we understand one another.

Practicing law has reinforced that lesson in ways I never expected.

Every file begins with a set of facts. Every person brings a lifetime of experiences, values, beliefs, and circumstances that rarely fit neatly within those facts. Some of the most important moments in my career have come not from finding the right legal authority, but from setting aside my own assumptions long enough to understand someone else’s perspective.

That has changed me as a lawyer.

It has also changed how I think about multiculturalism.

Too often, we speak about multiculturalism as though it is simply something to celebrate. It is certainly that. But it is also something that asks more of us. It asks us to live with complexity. To recognize that reasonable people can see the same issue differently. To approach disagreement with curiosity rather than certainty. To understand that listening is not the same as agreeing, but it is often the first step toward fairness.

The law is, at its best, an exercise in that discipline. Justice depends not only on principles, but on our willingness to understand the people those principles are meant to serve.

The longer I practise, the more convinced I become that understanding another person’s experience is not simply a professional skill. It is a civic responsibility. by @yolaventresca

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4 months ago

Culture is not what an organization says about itself. It is what its people are willing to champion. One of the things I value most about Lerners is the number of people across our firm who take responsibility for shaping who we are, not because it is part of their job description, but because they care deeply about the kind of organization we are building.

Nancy is one of those people. As Chair of our Diversity and Inclusion Committee, she brings conviction, thoughtfulness and an enormous amount of energy to work that matters. She believes deeply that a strong firm should make room for different perspectives, experiences and voices, and she is prepared to do the work required to turn that belief into practice

In my role, I get a particularly good vantage point from which to see that leadership.

It does not always come with a title.

And it is one of the things that makes me proudest of who we are.

#Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #WomenInLeadership #inclusion by @yolaventresca

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2 months ago

An award tells you something about how your career is seen from the outside. Hearing a client, a mentor and a mentee describe what they have seen from much closer range tells you something else entirely.

That is what made this film so meaningful to me.

Barry Craig speaks from the perspective of a client who has trusted me with difficult issues and important decisions. Peter Kryworuk speaks as someone who invested in me long before there were titles or recognitions attached to my name. Jane Scholes speaks from the other side of that relationship, as someone I have had the privilege of mentoring and watching build an extraordinary career of her own.

Listening to the three of them made me think about how much of a professional life is built in relationship with other people: those who trust us, those who see possibilities in us before we fully see them ourselves, and those for whom we eventually have the opportunity to do the same.

I am deeply appreciative to Barry, Peter and Jane for lending their voices to this, and to Lerners for creating something I will keep for a very long time.

If you have two minutes, I hope you will watch. by @yolaventresca

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a month ago

“All the world’s a stage.”

A little behind the scenes from the Lerners Stage. 🎥

Grateful for the conversations, the people, and the opportunity to keep telling the stories that matter.

#BehindTheScenes #Lerners taken in Grand Theatre by @yolaventresca

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2 months ago