Dear Gilda,
On December 17, the legal community lost an exceptional colleague and lawyer.
We wondered how to find the words to highlight your professional career without leaving out the exceptional person that you were.
We hope that your family and friends will accept these few lines that come from the heart, as we do not pretend to know everything about you.
Allow us to pay you, dear colleague, this humble professional tribute.
You used to say that law was a “second nature” to you, and this was evident at every stage of your career.
You first graduated in law in Peru, where you began your career at the Ministry of Labor.
Always in search of improvement, you applied to the best American universities. Despite challenges in English, you were not afraid to aim high! In the end, you chose Yale – one of the best universities in the world – to complete a master’s degree and eventually a PhD.
While you were at Yale, you met a man from Quebec, also a PhD student, who turned your world upside down. This man was your dear Bernard, with whom you would spend the rest of your life.
In 1988, you followed Bernard to France and took on legal research mandates for INSEAD (one of the most prestigious business schools in the world) while completing your doctoral thesis.
In 1994, life brought your little family to Montreal. Now the mother of four beautiful daughters – Maria Paula, Ana Lucia, Nathalie and Gabriela – you have managed to balance being an exceptional mother with a demanding professional life. In your eyes, being a mother and having a career of your own were not incompatible, quite the contrary.
This new step forced you to return to school at McGill University to complete your equivalencies. In 1998, you became a member of the Quebec Bar after articling at one of the most renowned law firms in Montreal.
You began your practice in business law, taking advantage of your Peruvian roots to work with corporate clients in Latin America.
In 2000, you discovered immigration law and chose to devote the rest of your professional career to it. A wise choice!
Your career path led you to advise a business clientele in matters of international mobility. Who better to take on this role than you, having gone through your own immigration process in the United States, France and then in Canada?
Being a mother of four, a wife and a career woman would have been too much for many of us, but not for you, our tireless Gilda.
You were driven by the need to give back to the community. You were involved in many associations, including AQAADI, the Latin American Chamber of Commerce and the Immigration and Citizenship section of the Canadian Bar Association (Quebec Division) of which you were President.
In 2017, the Quebec Bar Association recognized your exceptional career by awarding you the coveted title of Lawyer Emeritus.
It is through these involvements that we and many other colleagues and friends have had the immense privilege of knowing you. All will agree that you were a wonderful, caring and compassionate person – as well as an extraordinarily strong and talented lawyer.
Most recently, we were honored to welcome you to Galileo to finish your career. Our only regret, with great sorrow, is that we were not able to work with you longer.
The law was in your blood! There was no question for you to stop working your brain, as you said so well.
Despite the illness that inevitably set in, you continued to fight with such a positive attitude, showing us your resilience to face life’s challenges and your extraordinary strength of character.
Our dear globetrotter, it’s time for us to let you embark on your last journey to enjoy a much, much deserved rest.
As you look back on your career and accomplishments, please know that you have inspired an entire generation of immigration lawyers and have positively influenced our practice and the lives of many of us for a long time to come.
Wherever you are, we hope you are proud of it, and know that so many people loved you!
Au revoir belle Gilda,
Te queremos mucho!
Until we meet again,
Your team at Galileo
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