Sponsorship, Critical Thinking, and Building Your Own Platform with Aneka Jiwaji

<p>This week on Studying Law Around the World, I sat down with Aneka Jiwaji. She is a commercial and securities litigator who has been in practice for a decade. After navigating insurance defense, an international firm, and the BC Securities Commission, she recently co-founded JI Law, an all-women boutique firm.</p><p>We talked about why she decided to start her own practice. It wasn&#39;t about lifestyle or working fewer hours. She just wanted to build a place where women could do high-level commercial litigation without dealing with the yelling and inflated egos that the legal industry has somehow normalized. She wanted a space where they could simply focus on doing excellent work.</p><p><strong>What you will learn</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>Sponsorship beats mentorship.</strong> Young lawyers don&#39;t just need advice over coffee. They need a sponsor who sees their potential, mentions their name in closed rooms, and gives them substantive pieces of a file to handle.</p></li><li><p><strong>The true barrister approach.</strong> Aneka didn&#39;t lock herself into a single micro-niche early on. By taking on insurance, regulatory, and defamation work, she built a broad foundation that allows her to look at a client&#39;s business problems from multiple angles.</p></li><li><p><strong>The hidden cost of AI.</strong> JI Law uses plenty of technology, but Aneka warns against using AI to replace junior associates. If you outsource early legal work to software, young lawyers never learn critical thinking.</p></li></ul><p><strong>Why this matters</strong>It is easy to feel stuck if you are in a frustrating work environment. Aneka&#39;s story is a reminder that you don&#39;t have to fix the firm you are in. You can focus on doing good work, building your reputation—what she calls your character—and making genuine connections outside of your immediate office. If you do that consistently, you eventually build enough credibility to leave and create the exact practice you want.</p><p><strong>Three takeaways</strong></p><ol><li><p><strong>Stop treating networking like a transaction.</strong> Build real relationships without worrying about how a person can advance your career right now. Those organic connections are what actually sustain a practice over the long term.</p></li><li><p><strong>Get on your feet.</strong> Going to court to handle small applications in person builds a type of confidence you simply cannot get sitting at your desk on a video call.</p></li><l