Canadian Lawyer InHouse

Jun/Jul 2008

Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives

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FEATURE Multidisciplinary teams are ENERGY EFFICIENT If your company is looking to develop an energy or renewable energy project, several innovative law firms across the country are offering multidisciplinary teams to move these projects along efficiently. By Helen Burnett W ith the range of complex issues involved in energy and renewable energy projects, law firms across the country are drawing on the experience of multidisciplinary teams. That means lawyers specializing in areas as diverse as tax, intellectual prop- erty, and environmental law are helping to help move projects forward more ef- ficiently. Ron Stuber, a partner with Fraser Mil- ner Casgrain LLP in Vancouver, says that, while his firm has had a large energy law group for quite some time, with the ad- vent of more deal-flow in renewable en- ergy projects in recent years, "we're just seeing the benefits of working on proj- ects with a team that's not necessarily all in one office and comprised of members with the right specialties to help clients," he says. In the last couple of years, the energy group identified the need to look at how they were dealing with the development and financing of projects, he says, which involve many aspects and require differ- ent skill sets. On an independent power project, for example, the firm can typically as- sist clients on both the development and financing sides. The development side would involve real estate, environmental, and aboriginal law. If public companies get involved, there are also potentially securities law issues, and, on the financing side, banking, regulatory, and tax lawyers will join the project. On the development side, lawyers with commercial skills need to be familiar with the kinds of contracts that have to be entered into in order to construct and operate a power project, as well as the in- vestor side, which boils down to risk al- location, says Stuber. "All these different skill sets . . . these are things that clients need advice on, but they don't need it in isolation," he says. "They need it in a way that relates to the particular nature of a project that is a C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE JUNE 2008 19

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