Law Times

Page 4 January 19, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com take pro bono cases, to change the law for the benefit of my clients, which I do a lot. I have no reason to do any of that. I'm working for a big corporation and getting a cheque." To argue that alternative business structures would fos- ter innovation in the delivery of legal services is to say "Walmart innovated retail," according to Cameron. "All Walmart did is do it bigger," he says. Doing law in that way will also mean bad service, says Cameron, who calls alternative business structures "a disastrous idea." Under alternative business structures, firms would abandon unpopular cases as corporations try to protect their brand, he adds, suggesting the focus would turn solely to the bottom line and pleasing shareholders. Steve Rastin, current presi- dent of the OTLA, says non- lawyer owners of law firms wouldn't be keen to fill the gap in access to justice where it hurts the public the most: family and criminal law. "If you were to look at Slater and Gordon in Australia, they will freely admit that their vast majority of work and their in- come is in the area of personal injury law," he says. "ABS is being touted as a po- tential solution to the access to justice problem. But this does not enhance access to justice. Slater and Gordon will tell you that something like one per cent of their income is derived from family law." Going down a similar path would be bad news for Ontario firms, he says. "The reality is that if ABS comes to Ontario, they [corporations] are going to come in and focus on taking over and absorbing personal injury firms. There isn't going to be an en- hanced level of access for family law or criminal law. At least, that hasn't been what's been happen- ing in England and Australia." Lawyer Mitch Kowalski, au- thor of the book Avoiding Extinc- tion: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century, says the re- sponse from the personal injury bar ref lects "an irrational fear." "Their arguments, like most arguments against ABS, are based on emotion and conjec- ture. They're virtually devoid of evidence," he says. "We have 15 years of experi- ence in Australia. That's a pretty long clinical trial." There's no evidence from Australia that alternative busi- ness structures are bad for law- yers or, more importantly, for clients, he says. "It may be bad for lawyers, but the real ques- tion is, is it good for consum- ers because it's more important for things to be good for clients than for lawyers." Kowalski has been to the Mel- bourne, Australia, offices of Slater and Gordon, where he says the firm offers a broad spectrum of le- gal services. The Australian firm Salvos Legal has taken 11,000 pro bono cases in the last four years, according to Kowalski. "You cannot create a law firm to do pro bono work in that way without ABS." To the argument that there isn't an access to justice problem in personal injury law, Kowal- ski says lawyers need to look be- yond just the silos of their own practice area. The law society released a discussion paper on alterna- tive business structures in Sep- tember hoping to draw out the profession's thoughts and con- cerns. In its response, the OTLA resoundingly rejected the idea, casting doubt on the benefits of alternative business structures and saying the technological advances touted by their propo- nents are "overstated." "Technological change is al- ready occurring at various rates throughout the legal profession. It is not clear that ABS can provide innovation in delivery of legal services that lawyers practising in traditional firms cannot," accord- ing to the OTLA's submission. In its submission to the law so- ciety, the OTLA also says it would be costly to regulate under the new approach given the potential for conf licts of interest. "It would not be adequate for the law soci- ety to simply create new rules in the hope of protecting the public against the types of conf licts of in- terest that are inevitable in an ABS environment. This will require significantly increased resources and infrastructure for LSUC to regulate such matters. There is scant evidence from other juris- dictions that ABS leads to signifi- cant technological innovation." The OTLA also says its work- ing group studied the issue and found there's no empirical evi- dence that public ownership of law firms had increased access to justice in other jurisdictions. "The focus of many who discuss the issue of access to justice is that lawyers are expensive and that litigation is costly. However, those assertions fail to take into account the particular context in which the legal services are required. If a highly contentious family law or contractual issue is at the forefront of the dispute, then it is difficult to see how ABS will effectively decrease the costs of that litigation in a way that will increase 'access to jus- tice' for the parties involved. "Certain litigation is inher- ently expensive. The costs are driven by protracted timelines and other vagaries of the le- gal process itself. ABS will not materially contribute to the ef- ficiency of the legal process or reduce the costs inherent in the litigation model, without the na- ture of litigation changing dra- matically." LT is going to be front and centre this year." The possibility of alternative business struc- tures is causing even more apprehension in the personal injury bar. "The most significant challenge we could possi- bly foresee is if the law society decided to do some- thing drastic and unnecessary to the structure that we have," says David Levy, managing partner of personal injury firm Howie Sacks & Henry LLP. "Right now, we work within a system that al- lows us to do good work on behalf of our clients and help us get them the compensation they de- serve and make a good living doing it. If the law society doesn't interfere with that, we expect to be able to continue to do so," he adds. Over at boutique law firm Hicks Morley Ham- ilton Stewart Storie LLP, managing partner Ste- phen Shamie says he's "cautiously optimistic" about 2015. "As a boutique human resources law firm, we believe our clients will continue to look for spe- cialized [or] subject matter expertise advice that will allow them to deal with the challenges of their businesses," he says. But law firms will continue to face demands from their clients in terms of value-added services and the need to be more cost-effective, according to Shamie, who notes those focused on human re- source law may find new opportunities in areas such as the new medical marijuana regulations. "As a human resources law firm, the issue of medical marijuana in the workplace can be a sig- nificant issue for our clients and one which we ex- pect to see in 2015 together with other workplace, accommodation, and related issues," he says. Grant says law firms will likely seek to diversify their revenue bases this year, a lesson many took from the Heenan Blaikie collapse. "Whenever you're in uncertain economic times — and I'd say that terribly, that's where we are — we're always looking and I think law firms are looking to diversify their lines of business and maintain a di- verse revenue base," he says. "One of the many potential lessons we could learn from Heenan Blaikie is that if you put all your eggs in one or two baskets, then you set yourself up for dif- ficulties when economic conditions change. So cer- tainly going forward, I would think law firms will, to the extent they can, look to diversify their revenues and reduce their reliance on one major source of rev- enue or business." But other firms are quick to point out that Heenan Blaikie's demise left them with no scars. "As a specialty boutique law firm, many of the pressures experienced by full-service law firms simply do not apply in our case," says Shamie. "We have focused on our core strengths over the years, which has served us well." But even bigger law firms like Blakes express a similar sentiment. "We're pleased with our strategy of focusing on leading industry, practice areas, and markets, primarily in Canada but also elsewhere and we remain completely confident in that approach," says Gibson. "We haven't changed our strategy or manage- ment or approach to the market or anything we do in any respect whatsoever as a result of the Heenan collapse. That has been a non-event as far as we're concerned." LT NEWS Le Barreau du Haut-Canada est mandaté pour réglementer la profession juridique dans l'intérêt public. Les conseillers et les conseillères siègent en tant que membres du Conseil pour remplir ce mandat. La prochaine élection des membres du Conseil aura lieu le 30 avril 2015. La candidature des avocats intéressés doit être présentée par au moins cinq (5) avocats titulaires de permis. Les formulaires de candidature doivent être reçus par le Barreau à Osgoode Hall au plus tard à 17 h le 13 février 2015. Les critères d'admissibilité et des renseignements supplémentaires sont accessibles sur le site Web du Barreau. The Law Society of Upper Canada is mandated to govern the legal profession in the public interest. Benchers sit as members of Convocation to fulfill that mandate. The next bencher election will be held on April 30, 2015. Lawyers who wish to be candidates must be nominated by at least five (5) lawyer licensees. Nomination forms must be received by the Law Society at Osgoode Hall by 5:00 p.m. on February 13, 2015. Eligibility requirements and more information can be found on The Law Society of Upper Canada's website. 2015 BENCHER ELECTION 2015 ÉLECTION DES MEMBRES DU CONSEIL www.lsuc.on.ca/election-conseillers-2015 www.lsuc.on.ca/bencher-election-2015 Untitled-3 1 2015-01-13 12:37 PM Firms look to diversify revenue base Continued from page 1 Response reflects 'an irrational fear' Continued from page 1

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