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MANAGING PARTNER Christie is Blakes through and through BY GAIL J . COHEN be replaced as chairman by Brock Gibson, a partner at Blakes' Calgary office. Christie knows Blakes inside and out, having started his career articling there more than 30 years ago. The firm has more than 580 lawyers, 230 of whom are partners, with nine offices across Canada and in the U.S., U.K., and China. Christie talks to Canadian Lawyer about the firm's strengths and how it fits in with today's global economy. J Q Q Q I originally got involved with stu- dent recruitment, and that led to involvement as the chair of the students' committee many years ago. That led in due course to getting asked and being in- volved in more management, participat- ing on various committees and such. That's a challenge. It means you have to work all the time to try and juggle them. I've always thought it's important, particularly as I went to law school to practise law — to maintain a client involvement — and so I have. The chairman has overall respon- sibility for the firm: partner rela- tions, client relations — although it's not totally defined, but a focus on the exter- nal. The managing partner has responsi- bility for the operation and oversight of our various offices. It's not ironclad but that's more or less where it breaks down. Q We have a directly elected chair, a di- rectly elected managing partner, an executive committee of eight, of whom two are the chair and the managing part- ner. We also have a partnership committee of 19, which meets more or less four times a year. It is effectively a policy body. The 14 M AY 2008 www. C ANADIAN executive committee is comprised of part- ners elected by the partnership generally, and we try to get a cross-section of offices, practice areas, ages, and stages represented on the committee. In each office, we have an office-managing partner. Like many firms, we have some operating commit- tees and practice groups designations. We have national practice groups across [of- fices], with a head or a co-ordinator or joint co-ordinators. It's a matrix. Q They are both, although primarily foreign clients who are investing or operating in Canada and have Canadian legal needs. As an example, in China, a large chunk of our practice is assisting North American clients who are operat- ing or investing in the Chinese market. So it's a combination. Q Q mag.com I think we are starting see a change in the nature of the work our cli- ents are asking us to assist on: obviously less big-ticket M&A, although there con- tinues to be a reasonably good stream of mid-size M&A work; more restructuring and insolvency-related work; and I think we'll see an increase in litigation as we go forward. Overall I think it will be fine; it's just a change in the mix of work. For- tunately, given the nature of our practice being a general business law practice, we have exposure to all the different areas, so it just involves a shift of resources. Q I think everyone has the goal of ensuring their firm is pre-eminent We think it's important. Blakes is the only Canadian law firm with a physical presence in China. This is our 10th anniversary this year. It's been an important contributor in terms of client generation and, I think, growing more important as the world globalizes. and I hope I've achieved that with the support of everyone. Also, focused on trying to increase the size of our inter- national practice and obviously the es- tablishment of our foreign offices is part and parcel of that. The reason for that is, given the contracting business commu- nity in Canada, which gives rise to lots of conflicts and so on, the opportunities for substantial growth include, I think, the international practices. So we've been focusing on expanding that and it's now a significant part of our overall practice and firm revenues. Canadian Lawyer canadianlawyermag.com ames R. Christie's 14 years in senior management at Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP will draw to a close at the end of this year. Christie's eight-year term as firm chairman, which was preceded by six years as managing partner, wraps up Dec. 31, when he will