Biglaw, Canada

The View From Up North: Am Law 100 Firm Enters The Canadian Market

Which U.S. Biglaw firm recently opened an outpost in the Great White North?

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Canada View From Up North If you read my column regularly, you know I have often written about U.S. and internationally based law firms descending on Canada. Some of the recent merger activity has been neat. Dacheng merging with Dentons to form a Pacific Rim powerhouse is an example. Some of the recent merger activity has been… underwhelming. Gowlings combining with Wragge, for example, did not make my heart dance a jitterbug.

I have practically begged in this column for a real juggernaut, a Clifford Chance for example, to wed one of our Seven Sisters. That would be amazing, and would make for a great column.

Sadly, that’s not today’s column.

Still, I am happy to announce the arrival of an Am Law 100 firm that intrigues me. Ogletree, Deakins recently opened a Toronto office. For those who don’t know, Ogletree is a Greenville, South Carolina-based firm that focuses on labor and employment law. It’s a pretty big deal. It has over 700 lawyers spread throughout the United States. The firm has a reported profit per partner of US$615,000, so the partners are making pretty decent coin busting unions.

Ogletree has taken the greenfield approach to Canada, convincing prominent L&E lawyer Hugh Christie to abandon the aforementioned Gowlings to be the key figure in the Toronto office. Hugh brought along another partner, Ed Majewski, and an associate.

Let’s talk style points. Ogletree gets low marks for the greenfield — I hate small splashes and opening an office by swiping three lawyers from another firm does not get the pool deck wet.

Let’s talk strategy points. I like this move. First off, Ogletree managed to snag a relatively high-profile lawyer to kick things off. Hugh Christie is the former chairman of the national labor and employment group at Gowlings. Sure, he’s not the former national practice leader of, say, Torys, but it’s still a pretty good get.

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Additionally, there is relatively low risk to opening up a small beachhead in Toronto. If it doesn’t work out, it won’t drag Ogletree under, that’s for sure. Thus, full marks for acting like lawyers and mitigating risk.

More importantly, Ogletree says it wants to grow quickly in Canada. One of Hugh’s rationales for jumping office towers was conflicts. Let’s face it, corporate lawyers and high-powered litigators rule the roost at most national firms. Put differently, if there’s a client conflict between a top corporate partner and a top employment partner who wins? I bet it’s the partner who runs the multi-billion-dollar merger, not the partner who drafts the new sexual harassment policy after the merger closes. Losing client conflict battles must suck for employment partners, right?

Now top L&E lawyers have a different option. They can join Ogletree, a very large, prominent, labor and employment-only firm. Poof, no more conflicts with those jokers in Corporate.

Added bonus, the Canadian dollar is now lower than Bill Cosby’s career. It currently costs less than 70 cents U.S. to purchase one Canadian dollar. Historically when that happens, we find a significant increase of American businesses outsourcing to Canada, especially in manufacturing. That creates — tah-dah — a need for Canadian legal advice for Ogletree’s large clients who want to set up shop in the Great White North. Ogletree must have asked itself, “Why are we referring our U.S. clients to Canadian law firms where we can set up our own Toronto office and keep it in the family?”

Exactly.

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Littler Mendelson, another prominent U.S. labor and employment firm, entered the Toronto market last year by acquiring L&E boutique Kuretzky Vassos, so Ogletree is not breaking new ground here.

Still, I find the Ogletree move interesting because Kuretzky Vassos was an established firm with its own culture, etc. Ogletree Toronto is brand new. The next few lawyers that join are essentially getting in on the ground floor. They get to help establish whatever Ogletree Toronto will turn out to be, for better or for worse. I think that might be more attractive to prominent labor and employment partners than joining an already established firm like Littler/Kuretzky.

In any event, to all you labor and employment partners who are suffering from small-fish-in-a-national-pond syndrome — but like to work in a Biglaw environment — you now have two new options in the T-Dot.

One piece of advice to Ogletree: if you really want to attract talent, if you’re serious about growing, you don’t need to pay above-market wages. You just have to offer Canadian lawyers the same salary in American dollars — cha-ching! — and wait for your phone to ring off the hook.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a great week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Steven Dykstra Law Professional Corporation, a boutique corporate/commercial law firm located in the greater Toronto area. You can contact Steve at [email protected]. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@Law_Think), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).

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