“
THE CEO IS
DRIVING AND
THE BOARD IS
PROVIDING THE
GPS. THE LEGAL
DEPARTMENT’S
JOB IS TO
ENSURE
ITS ENGINE
COMPONENT
WORKS AS
FLAWLESSLY AS
POSSIBLE.
— Barry Fisher,
Vp, general counsel
sap canada inc.
My advice is, don’t rule out small firms.”
When they needed to go outside,
within a modest $20,000 external legal
services budget, they would often directly approach a law firm with the right
expertise or whoever was the leading
practitioner in a specific area of law.
“In Oshawa, particularly with very
volatile, politically charged issues, we
felt we needed to get the best and didn’t
want to be trapped within a firm structure,” Knox explains.
Fisher adds that some corporate legal
departments opt to send bulk transactional work offshore to such countries as
India, Indonesia and Israel, and benefit
by lower rates.
To keep costs in control, the legal de-
partment at Canadian National Railway
Co. is trying out a new fee arrangement
with two of its longstanding national firm
partners: Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP
and Norton Rose Canada LLP (previ-
ously Ogilvy Renault).
