BUSINESS
CAREERS
Sports
Continued From Page 21
near the media frenzy that’s been
going on in Winnipeg since the
spring. Back then, a team of law-
yers at Aikins MacAulay & Thor-
valdson in Winnipeg played an
invaluable role in helping True
North Sports & Entertainment,
a company partly bankrolled by
David Thomson, Canada’s rich-
est man, and Mark Chipman,
leader of Winnipeg’s newest
business empire, in landing the
Atlanta Thrashers last May for
US$170 million.
13,000 season tickets in just a
few days. The lawyers who
worked on the deal declined to
be interviewed for this story.
Another recent marquee
cross-border deal that Baker
worked on was the $8-billion
merger between Nalco, the
world’s biggest water treatment
and process improvement com-
pany, and ECOLab, a global
sanitation firm. That deal also
attracted a fair amount of media
attention, though not nearly as
much as the repatriation of the
Jets to Canada or the purchase
of the Stars, deals which were
worth a relative pittance.
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First, though, Gaglardi has to go
through the auction process,
which has been agreed upon by
the NHL, the lenders and sellers.
He says what’s unique to
doing a sports deal is recognizing that it is, in fact, not unique.
A lot of people get really excited
when working on transactions
like this, which is easy to do,
particularly if you’re a fan, and
lose sight of the fact that lawyers
are legal experts, not sports
team managers.
“You have to focus on the economics of the deal. I rarely participate in meetings regarding
on-ice issues. My job is to manage purchase agreemenets,
security documents, loan agreements, indemnities, not coaches
and players. That’s the trick to
being a successful sports lawyer,”
he says.
“I watch out for young lawyers who are really just fans and
want to be involved because
they’re fans. (Being a fan) is not
enough. You have to realize it’s
just a deal of a different type.
Your job is to do the deal, not get
mesmerized by the sport itself,”
says Rossiter. “Being a fan is on
your own time.” n
Crossing borders
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Virtually every law firm in
Canada does cross-border work,
so it should come as no surprise
that competition is heating up on
both sides of the 49th parallel
and internationally.
“It’s not unlike the business
market,” says Grant Stefanson, a
managing partner at D’Arcy &
Deacon LLP in Winnipeg. “You’re
seeing more and more cross
over and there’s increased
competition for the work that’s
crossing jurisdictions,” he says.
As a result, an increasing
number of firms are aligning
themselves with international
networks, such as Lex Mundi
and Lawyers Associated
Worldwide (LAW), so they can
position themselves to have
work referred to them by their
global partners.
“The reality is we don’t
get much work from Brazil.
But as the international
community expands, you’re
buying into something for the
future,” he says.
Some firms are responding
by opening up branch offices
in other cities and countries, a
trend that Stefanson thinks
will continue.
“If you just need a small
office, a toehold, everything is
electronic so you can do it pretty
economically,” he says.
