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Firm proFile
Swiss Verein legal structure, its
Canadian and other components operate independently without financial integration and with
limited liability.)
Furlong also points out that
Norton Rose “cut its teeth” in the
extremely competitive markets of
London and New York and
expects that it will bring that
same competitiveness to Canada.
The British invasion could
continue.
On a smaller scale, U.K.-based
insurance specialist firm Clyde &
Co. has reportedly held discussions with Nicholl Paskell-Mede,
an insurance and liability defence
boutique with offices in Toronto
and Montreal.
On a larger scale, British powerhouse DLA Piper — the world’s biggest firm with more than 4,000
lawyers and itself the result of a
merger between U.S. and British
firms—is reported to have courted
Fasken in 2008. More recently, it is
in merger discussions with some of
Canada’s top 10 firms, including
Heenan Blaikie and Fraser Milner
Casgrain, both of which have offices
in energy-hub Calgary, according
to The Lawyer in the U.K.
“This says that the world is
moving into the Canadian marketplace,” says Furlong.
Norton Rose Group has
“cracked the marketplace wide
open” for such other global players
as DLA Piper, who are rumoured
to pursue alliances with Canadian
firms having strong practices in
the natural resources and oil and
gas sectors, says law firm consultant Michael Short, a managing
director at professional services
firm management consultancy,
Hildebrandt Baker Robbins in
Washington, D.C.
“If a major international firm
ever does a deal with global con-
nections based on energy and
natural resources, it’s going to
redefine the community of big
players in Canada,” he says. “It
remains to be seen if the current
big players will find it necessary
to do one of these transactions.”
“But if a national firm, not in
the Seven Sisters, is trying to cre-
ate a stronger presence and has a
good energy practice, this could
be very interesting.”
Short expects to see one or two
more Swiss Verein-type alliances
formed in Canada and smaller
outposts established here by top
U.K. — or so-called magic circle —
firms attempting to establish a
foothold in these industry-led
practice areas.
However, one Canadian firm is
already doing so, without a merger.
Established in Calgary as
Bennett, Hannah & Sanford in
1922, today’s Bennett Jones
LLP’s energy and natural resources practice has followed the
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Formed From a merger of five
regional firms on March 1, 2000,
Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG)
LLP arrived on the national
scene a year after seven other
large firms were dubbed the
“Seven Sisters.”
While not a sibling in that
family, BLG is—a little more
than a decade later—the Big
Mamma of Canadian law firms.
With about 760 lawyers at offices
in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal,
Waterloo, Calgary and Vancou-
ver, it is, by that head count, the
country’s largest firm and the
size of top firms in the U.S. How-
ever, BLG would not have come
to be had it not been for one of
the sisters, McCarthy Tétrault
LLP, starting the merger trend
when four regional firms got
together and, after the Supreme
Court of Canada (SCC) gave the
go-ahead in the Black v. Law
Society of Alberta [1989] S.C.J.
No. 27, established Canada’s first
national law firm.
The broader reach and multi-
heads-are-better-than-one
model inspired Howard, Mackie
of Calgary, McMaster Gervais of
Montreal, Scott & Aylen of
Ottawa, Borden & Elliot of
Toronto and Ladner Downs of
Vancouver to come together,
according to Sean Weir, who has
served as national managing
partner since BLG’s creation.
With about 760 lawyers at
offices in: Toronto, Ottawa,
Montreal, Waterloo, Ont.,
Calgary and Vancouver,
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP is
Canada’s largest law firm.
“We wanted good practitioners with good clients, and had
growth by winning new business.”
Still, the firm is not shy about
promoting its top-of-the-heap
status, and uses it as a “calling
card” when searching for work
internationally.
PAVEL LOSEVSKY / DREAMSTIME.COM
“It gives us a certain measure
of respect,” explains Weir, who
also practises corporate law
focused on pension and finan-
cing matters. “Our size indi-
cates stability, growth and con-
tinuity with clients.”
Lawyers from other firms
seem to like those characteris-
tics too.
“We’ve never had as many
partners from other law firms
looking to join BLG as we have
over the last eight months,” says
Weir, who started practising
law in 1981 with Borden &
Elliot. “Some firms may not
have as broad a client base, may
be more transactional in nature
and may be having more issues
with workflow than we are in
today’s economy.”
Although the firm, like others,
has experienced decreased vol-
ume in banking, acquisitions and
securities transactions since the
start of the economic crisis in
October 2008, BLG’s broad-
based practice (55 per cent of
which is corporate work and 45
per cent from litigation or dispute
resolution) has kept it financially
strong. Having a stable institu-
tional client base, composed of
banks, insurance companies, hos-
pitals, schools and governments
has also served the firm well
through the recession—particu-
larly in Calgary, where the econ-
omy is thriving thanks in large
part to the booming electricity
sector and oil and gas industry.
Top 10 law firms by visibility in Canada
The top 10 most visible Canadian law firms on martindale.com (which is
owned by The Lawyers Weekly publisher LexisNexis Canada Inc.), listed
according to the total number of times they have appeared in searches for
Canadian law firms during the past month.
rank Top 10 law firms: Canada
1 Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
2 Bennett Jones LLP
3 McCarthy Tétrault LLP
4 Heenan Blaikie LLP
5 Stewart McKelvey
6 Miller Thomson LLP
7 Davis LLP
8 Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP
9 Norton Rose OR LLP
10 Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Change
in rank
last
month
2
3
1
4
5
9
8
7
6
N/A
months
on list
46
46
46
30
38
10
13
36
46
1
development of Alberta’s oil
industry, which has helped give it
a global presence in the energy
marketplace. With a flurry of
deal activity in oil and gas, electricity, power projects, mining
and renewable fuels, the firm has
been in “the right place at the
right time,” says Short.
“It’s established itself in the
marketplace and has become part
of what I call the Eight Sisters.”
For its part, Ogilvy Renault, as
Norton Rose OR, creates an
entirely new category of law firms
in Canada, according to Furlong.
It can now expand its expertise in
such practice areas as life sciences
and build its client base, which
includes the Royal Bank of Can-
ada, Bombardier Inc. and SNC-
Lavelin, through its new global
network of lawyers to pursue other
market opportunities.
“They could go from one of
many big firms in Canada to being
part of an even bigger firm in the
world and get a much higher level
of work,” says Leishman. He also
does not expect to see much in the
way of national mergers happening
in the near future beyond the corporate nuptials earlier this year
between McMillan LLP and Lang
Michener LLP, and Toronto-based
Miller Thomson LLP and Balfour
Moss LLP of Saskatchewan.
A merger is also not in BLG’s
immediate plans, says national
managing partner Sean Weir, who
does expect other large Canadian
firms will consider Norton Rose-type arrangements.
He says that foreign suitors
find Canada attractive because of
its commodities and because the
country’s banking and financial
systems weathered the recent
economic storm. But BLG is likely
too big to enter into any formal
global network, and is concentrating on informal relationships
it has with a broad number of
firms around the world.
“The defining issue for the
growth of Norton Rose-type
arrangements will be law firms
assessing what they will gain and
what they will lose by doing something like this,” says Weir. n
