BUSINESS
CAREERS
SHAWN JEFFORDS FOR THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
Carl Fleck, Cathy Wilde and Fleck’s wife Pascale Daigneault work at Fleck & Daigneault together. The three-lawyer firm is more like a family than a business, says Wilde.
Smaller is better for some lawyers
SMALL
FIRMS
PART 2
OF A
3-PART
SERIES
CHRISTOPHER GULY
Cathy Wilde practises law with a
small firm in a small southwest Ontario
community and has “never seriously
thought about living anywhere else.”
The 34-year-old Regina native first
worked at Fleck & Daigneault in Point
Edward, Ont. — a village of about 2,000
residents, adjacent to Sarnia, Ont.—
between her second and third year of
law studies at the University of Sas-
katchewan (U of S) in Saskatoon. Back
then the eastward pull was driven by
personal attraction.
Her boyfriend at the time, a year
ahead of her in law at the U of S, was
from Sarnia and was heading home to
do his articling.
While they didn’t stay together (she
married someone else and is expecting
their first child this summer), Wilde
stuck with the firm and they with her.
After obtaining her LL.B. in 2000,
she returned to Fleck & Daigneault to
complete her articles and, after being
called to the Ontario bar two years later,
has remained there in a practice focused
on personal injury litigation.
Carl Fleck, who has practised law in
Ontario since 1967, also handles per-
sonal injury claims, while his wife, Pas-
cale Daigneault—who began practis-
ing law with a large firm in Edmonton
in 1988—runs the three-lawyer firm
(which also has an articling student)
and also does some personal injury liti-
gation, but mainly handles wills and
estate litigation.
“We really work well together
because we have a unique approach—
everybody works on all the files,” says
Wilde, who also serves as chair of the
Ontario Trial Lawyers Association’s
Women’s Caucus.
“It’s more like a family than a busi-
ness, and I’ve never been tempted to go
to a big firm in a big city.”
Why would she? Fleck & Daigneault
is the only boutique practice focused on
plaintiff personal injury in the Sarnia,
Ont. area. At any given time, Wilde has
about 100 files on the go.
And, the firm doesn’t advertise its
services. “Our philosophy is that one
happy client will tell one or two people,
but one unhappy client will tell 8 or 10,”
explains Wilde, who adds that most of
Fleck & Daigneault’s clients are based
on referrals, with some coming from as
far as away as London, Ont. — about an
hour’s drive from Sarnia, Ont.
