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CROSS EXAMINED partners and associates, two counsel, and enough blue-chip clients in Quebec's pro- vincial capital to make the many larger national and regional firms present in the city green with envy. According to O'Brien, both the heart and strength of the law firm he founded was and remains a compensation system that rewards part- ners and associates on the value of their work rather than for the clients and cases they bring through the door. "No one is individually rewarded for personal rain- making," he says. "My business model for the firm results in voluntary contraction whereby the firm will resist growth, but will reach the size that is required to serve our clients and respond to most of their business and commercial law needs." The result, he adds, has been the slow but steady growth of a small core of highly skilled and motivated lawyers who are able to provide fast, quality service to a mostly well-heeled A-list of regular clients. "The relatively low number of partners and associates affords the firm the luxury of being very meticulous in recruiting its members [and] the benefit to our clients is a very high-quality, personalized service," says O'Brien. "I believe the business model proved to be the right one for the Quebec City market." As understatements go, that's a whop- Daniel O'Brien left his job at a top firm to start his own based on a novel idea. Quebec City lawyer creates unique business model BY MARK CARDWELL Firm first D aniel O'Brien says his friends and legal col- leagues thought he was nuts. Just four years after being called to the bar and landing a to-kill-for job with one of Quebec City's leading business law firms, he decided, at age 27, to strike out on his own and create a new firm based on a novel idea. "I had a vision of a full-service business and commercial firm with a small number of lawyers gravitat- ing around one rainmaker, the firm itself," O'Brien says about his Jerry Maguire-like epiphany. "I wanted to offer concierge quality that made clients feel like we were part of their business, not just some out- side hire." That was 1984; 27 years later, O'Brien Barristers & Solicitors LLP boasts 10 24 N O VEMBER / D ECEMBER 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com per. By all accounts, O'Brien's firm has built an envious reputation among lawyers in the city and beyond for the quality of consultation and contractual intervention services it offers, in both French and Eng- lish, together with courtroom representa- tion in civil and commercial litigation. "They are not a major firm here but they are an important one that serves a beauti- ful brochette of local clients," says Lise Bergeron, a partner with 50-lawyer Stein Monast in Quebec City and a former president of the regional bar association. "They have a very nice business that is unique in this market." The soul and driving force of the firm is the affable and self-deprecating law- yer who conceived it. But behind the seemingly mild manner and ready smile lurks the spirit of a gutsy entrepreneur and a steel-minded legal practitioner who has worked on or pleaded cases at all levels, including the Supreme Court of Canada, on behalf of banks, governments, MARK CARDWELL