Law Times

Law Times • January 9, 2017 Page 5 www.lawtimesnews.com McCarthy's 'doubling down' with Wortzmans acquisition BY JENNIFER BROWN Law Times M cCarthy Tétrault LLP has acquired e-discovery firm Wortzmans in an arrangement that will see Susan Wortzman join the firm as an equity partner. McCarthy's announced to- day that it has made the acquisi- tion and that, while the Wortz- mans team will be integrated into the firm, Wortzmans will continue to operate as a separate e-discovery and managed re- view service for its clients. "It's a little unusual for law firms to do deals like this, but we saw it was a great opportunity for us and we think it's going to be a great fit," says McCarthy Té- trault CEO Dave Leonard. Wortzman says it's an oppor- tunity for her firm to further de- velop its platform. "We'd been thinking about this for some time and the rea- son we decided to do this now was because the fit was so good with McCarthy's," she says. Wortzmans employs a large group of contract lawyers, but in terms of permanent lawyers, three will be going over to McCarthy's. "We're a very multi- disciplinary team. We have lawyers, project managers and a forensic engineer and support staff," she says. Leonard says the two firms are still figuring out "exactly what the structure is going to look like," but he notes that as Wortzmans has a "tremendous brand" in the e-discovery area the firm wants to leverage that but must also work through all the potential conf licts. "For the time being and per- haps for the foreseeable future, we will keep them as separate entities. As of right now, we are keeping them completely sepa- rate — both have their own phys- ical space and only Susan's peo- ple will have access to the matters she is working on and vice versa with the firm," Leonard says. "We will see how that plays out and how our clients react and how Susan's clients react. So far, the reaction has been positive." Ultimately, Leonard says he is hopeful the strength of Wortz- mans will be "so strong" that other law firms will continue to engage Wortzmans for managed document review. "We'll be having some discus- sions with some of those firms in the not too distant future about that," he adds. Wortzman says it's currently "business as usual" for Wortz- mans as it is dealing with clients to see who will go with them to McCarthy's. "For clients it will be seam- less because they will have the same pricing and the same team working on their matters," she says. "No question, it will be challenging for some, but for corporate clients and public sec- tor agencies it probably doesn't matter as much." It was two years ago that De- loitte LLP acquired ATD Legal Services PC, launched in 2010 by former Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP partner Shelby Austin. Wortzman, who founded the firm in 2007, said she was look- ing at other options but in the end McCarthy's was the "best model for me." Other important factors to her include the fact McCarthy's wanted to keep the Wortzmans brand alive and that it wants to leverage technology to manage data more for legal analytics. "It's an interesting time and some of the accounting firms are interested in this space and in our business and so we're seeing this as an opportunity to have a good offering for our clients go- ing forward," Leonard says. While McCarthy's has had an e-discovery and information management practice, over time, Leonard says, it became "more of a challenge" to do it in the tradi- tional law firm model as people like Austin and Wortzman started their businesses. "We think this is going to be a great addition to our ability to deliver services in a more in- novative, cost-effective way to clients but with the McCarthy's quality and Wortzman quality," he says. "Without having to out- source to a third-party vendor, we've now brought it in-house." Leonard acknowledges that in a competitive legal market firms like McCarthy's are com- peting with the big four account- ing firms and e-discovery is one where there will be more com- petition in the document review/ information governance area. Leonard would not disclose what the investment was in ac- quiring Wortzmans into the firm, but he says there was "sig- nificant scrutiny" on both sides and the McCarthy's board of partners unanimously endorsed the recommendation to pro- ceed with the transaction. It was rolled out to equity partners of the firm just before Christmas. "I've got nothing but enthu- siastic responses. It's a tough market and we're all looking for growth and this is an area where we think we can make some gains," he says. As Wortzmans is a law firm, the deal is similar to two law firms merging, and while there are rules of professional respon- sibility that have to be upheld and conf lict issues that have to be managed, the transaction did not require law society approval. LT Recognizing the best in Canadian deal-making Come and celebrate at the 10 th annual Canadian Dealmakers awards gala This event brings together the who's who of corporate executives, CEO's, corporate executives, deal teams and advisors, who have impacted their industry and have strategically positioned their EXVLQHVVIRULQQRYDWLRQJURZWKJOREDOL]DWLRQDQGGLYHUVLȴFDWLRQ Join us at the Canadian Dealmakers awards ceremony on March 9, 2017 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel Toronto. 6:00 pm Cocktail reception 7:00 pm Gala dinner & awards presentation Hosted by: Ben Mulroney, Anchor of CTV's eTalk To purchase a table, please contact us at CarswellMedia.Sales@thomsonreuters.com or call 416-649-8841. Learn more at www.canadiandealmakers.ca Founding partners Net proceeds go to support Untitled-1 1 2017-01-05 12:32 PM NEWS McCarthy Tétrault LLP chief executive officer Dave Leonard and Susan Wortzman, who is now an equity partner at McCarthy's.

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