One-time stunt performer turns law grad

Lori Shilo MacKay has done some crazy things to earn a paycheque: getting doused from head to toe in fuel and lit on fire, getting airborne while riding shotgun on a snowmobile at 90 km/h and fighting off aliens and cyborgs.

Equally audacious, but less physically demanding, was her decision to switch from stunt performer to law student, one who is set to graduate from the University of Calgary on May 8.  

Naturally, everyone wants to know how MacKay became a movie and TV stunt performer before veering into law.

“Well, I always joke and say I ‘fell’ into it – because I love a pun,” she says.

She means that literally. MacKay was working as a production assistant for a commercial shoot one day when a snowmobile accidentally started rolling down a hill. Instinctively, she made a flying leap in a vain attempt to stop it.

“It was stupid and wrong; it defied physics,” she admits.

But someone who saw her in action was impressed and a few weeks later, she got a job offer. The caller said, “Anyone that stupid and brave could be a stunt person.”

So began a decade of stunt performance jobs that took her around North America. That was until the United States economy tanked, which affected Canada’s film industry and the stunt jobs dried up.

It was enough to motivate MacKay to pursue the career change she’d been thinking about. She enrolled in law school, a seemingly huge shift, but not one that fazed friends and family.

“People who know me thought, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ I tend to do things that are a bit odd, but it wasn’t a super surprise.”

What is surprising is that MacKay sees similarities between law and stunt performance. “Doing a good stunt means planning and looking at all of the contingencies and it’s all about mitigation,” she says. “And I think a lot of those skills translate . . . preparation, knowing the context and knowing what your end game is and how to get there.”

Though MacKay describes herself as a “massive tree-hugger,” finding a passion for environmental law while doing research on a controversial British Columbia mine, she says she’ll instead pursue criminal law.

She could excel in either field because she can take a broad view on issues, says Arlene Kwasniak, who taught MacKay and worked with her on directed research.

“She doesn’t (have) . . . blinders on,” Kwasniak says, now a retired law professor.  “She sees the role of environmental protection from a broad perspective. If she pursues criminal law, it’ll be the same. She appreciates the role of law in making society a better place.”

Working as a volunteer at the Student Legal Assistance Society, “I realized there is an access to justice issue in Canada,” MacKay says.

“It’s a pretty serious problem, in my opinion, so I’m looking down that road as to how to have a career that addresses that access to justice,” she says. “There’s really good work to be done if you approach law with a social conscience.”