Law Times

Law Times • sepTember 7, 2009 NEWS Firm's reasons for closing nation's capital office still unclear McCarthys shutdown a boon to other Ottawa shops BY TIM NAUMETZ For Law Times OTTAWA — The Ottawa bar, not to mention the city's politi- cal establishment, is scratching its collective head over McCa- rthy Tétrault LLP's puzzling de- cision to wind down operations in the capital. Although motives behind the shutdown remain mysteri- ous, one thing is certain. As the inhabitants of McCarthys' office on Elgin Street vacated the premises over the past two months, competing firms in Ot- tawa came up winners. Two of McCarthys' veteran Ottawa partners have joined a prominent local firm that prac- tices litigation exclusively. The boutique firm Cavanagh Williams became Cavanagh Williams Conway Baxter over- night, the same day the names of Tom Conway and Colin Baxter disappeared from McCarthys' web site. Conway and Baxter, who joined McCarthys in 1995 and 1991 respectively, took two Mc- Carthys associates with them to their new firm. They say the move will give them greater free- dom to practise litigation with- out the conflicting interests that often plague large firms. "Over the last couple of years, it's fair to say that we were some- what frustrated," says Conway. "As litigators, you want to be able to take on certain kinds of mandates that don't really fit the strategic direction of a firm like McCarthys, particularly in Ot- tawa where a lot of the work that Colin and I would do would have a political overtone that re- ally wasn't in sync with McCa- rthys' vision for itself," he adds. Baxter adds their new shop will be a "more nimble and flex- ible firm that allows us to take a greater array of retainers and mandates that perhaps were not possible in a bigger firm like McCarthys." Conway, a Law Society of Upper Canada bencher, was Mc- Carthys' litigation group leader in Ottawa. His CV includes rep- resentation in some of the most high-profile disputes in the city, including a former Conservative party member who sued Prime Minister Stephen Harper for li- bel and took it to settlement. Baxter, who began his career as a Supreme Court of Canada law clerk to justices Bertha Wil- son and Frank Iacobucci, has an equally impressive litigation CV and is a special advocate in Canada's ultra-secret anti- terrorism proceedings. Another former partner at McCarthys, Barbara McIsaac, chose a lateral move to a large firm, one which apparently has no doubt about the need for a presence in the national capital. As counsel at Borden Lad- ner Gervais LLP, McIsaac tells Law Times she will continue re- tainers and specialties that have made her one of the best-known issues in Ottawa in favour of exclusive billing and client goals it adopted during a major strategic shift in 2001. A book about the firm by Law Times columnist Christo- pher Moore, McCarthy Tétrault: Building Canada's Premier Law Firm 1855-2005, says the aim under new chief executive offi- cer Iain Scott was to focus the firm's strengths on "the most promising, challenging, and profitable lines of work, and the new management team was deeply involved in defining who and what those clients and busi- ness lines should be." LT Tom Conway is now a partner at litigation boutique Cavanagh Williams Conway Baxter in Ottawa. experts in the country on pri- vacy legislation and public and administrative law. Currently representing Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand in the battle against the Con- servative Party of Canada over campaign advertising for the 2006 election, McIsaac has in the past served as senior counsel to the Somalia inquiry as well as senior counsel for the Canadian government at the Arar inquiry. She will also continue to rep- resent the broadcasting industry in a dispute with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecom- munications Commission over annual licensing fees. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP also quickly posted three additions to its roster following the Ottawa exodus from McCa- rthys. Robert Chapman joins Faskens as counsel to focus on corporate finance, securities, mergers and acquisitions, finan- cial services, and technology law. Anna Tosto became a Faskens partner focusing on corporate financing for the technology and transportation sectors. Virginia Schweitzer also joins the firm as a partner to continue her practice in finance, mergers and acquisi- tions, securities, mining law, and technology law. Counsel and former Lib- eral deputy prime minister John Manley is leaving McCarthys to become CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. The developments left only one partner in the Ottawa office as of last week — international trade specialist Brenda Swick. McCarthys remains tight- lipped about why it decided to apparently end its presence in Canada's capital city. Darryl Cruz, a partner and leader of the firm's litigation group, would not even confirm the Ottawa doors will close for good. "We're still reviewing what we want to do in Ottawa, and I'm not sure where we're going to end up, but we're looking at what practices, if any, might suit our needs in Ottawa," says Cruz. One senior lawyer, familiar with the Ottawa scene, suggests McCarthys has likely foregone prestige and prominence on a range of national governance Ridout_LT_Feb9-16_09.indd 1 When it comes to IP in Canada, We're Well Read Ridout & Maybee LLP: Editors of the Canadian Patent Reporter it all starts somewhere www.ridoutmaybee.com PAGE 3 2/5/09 10:52:55 AM Subscribe to Law Times Why pay extra for your legal news? Cutting-edge legal affairs, news and commentary for just 37¢ a day! Make the time for Law Times and keep up with all the developments in Ontario's legal scene. Subscribe today and receive: • Unlimited access to the Law Times digital editions and to our digital edition archives...FREE • Canadian Legal Newswire, a weekly e-newsletter from the editors of Law Times and Canadian Lawyer...FREE McKELLAR STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS INC. www.mckellar.com www.mckellar.com 1-800-265-8381 BY ROBERT TODD Law Times dicial Council's decision to call for his ouster, saying he was compelled to resign due to his pending retire- ment, despite finding aspects of the council's report "troublesome." Cosgrove tells Law Times in an interview that once the CJC issued its recommendation to the justice minister, "My options were pretty narrow." While he believes he could have appealed an earlier committee report at ormer Ontario Superior Court justice Paul Cosgrove has spo- ken out on the Canadian Ju- month after the CJC issued a final re- port stating that his actions in a late- Cosgrove F 'Shock and disappointment' Cosgrove says 'life goes on' after the benche of public confidence was central to its decision. He suggests that it remains unclear what evidence is required to make such a determination. people in public office, and they were given little weight, according to the decision." Cosgrove's final criticism is the CJC's determination that the issu inquiry the Federal Court, he says a decision was un- likely before his mandatory retire- ment took hold in December. resigned earlier this Law Times 1990s murder trial led to the conclusion that he "failed in the execution of the duties of his judi- cial office and that public confidence in his abil- ity to discharge those duties in future has been irrevocably lost." The decision made him only the second federal judge to meet such a fate. But the former judge says parts of the CJC's the senior regional judges in Ottawa since I've been here for the last 24 years, all wrote very positive recommendations, and they also were aware of the trial," says Cosgrove. "So to say that these letters, the people had final report could have been challenged. The council did not use a set of 32 letters of given rise for us to challenge," he says. "The problem with that is, of course I'm retired — manda- tory retirement in December of this year. And the process, for ex- ample, dealing with the constitu- tional issue, took three years." He says he did not want to "So, all of those issues may have Financial Matters with 20,000 pages of evidence likely put forth. The 74-year-old former judge, who will gamble and let the matter play out before Parliament, where an un- precedented joint resolution would have been required to finalize his ouster. Doing so may have proved cumbersome, suggests Cosgrove, no knowledge of what was going on was not accurate." Cosgrove also suggests the council should support written by judges and retired judges, law- yers andmembers of the public when coming to have used the letters from community mem- bers when considering whether he had lost the public's confidence. collect an annual pension of about $170,000, says that before the decision he was reason- ably confident that the council would not call for his dismissal. Independent counsel Earl Cherniak, a partner at Lerners LLP, had previ- ously told the council such a stern punishment was not necessary. "It was shock and disappointment," Cos- "It would seem to me that it's logical to test l grove says of his reaction to the final decision. H h h b d aling with the fall 9 Focus On ADR/ Mediation 3 Inside This Issue Fight Over Fees 6 Quote of the week "It is now incumbent on sports federations in selection disputes to show they had the proper criteria set up and that it was properly applied . . . The onus is now on the organiza- tion not the athlete. 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• Cover
• Ottawa Shutdown
• Access to Justice
• Focus On Class Actions