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MANAGING PARTNER Borden Ladner Gervais in the game to compete and win B Q BY GAIL J . COHEN orden Ladner Gervais LLP is the largest law firm in Canada with offices in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, and Waterloo, Ont. Sean Weir is the national managing partner of the firm, which employs close to 2,000 people across the country, including 700 lawyers, of which 400 are partners. Weir makes no bones about being the head of a highly competitive firm that asks for hard work and a strong commitment from its law- yers. While BLG is not a touchy-feely place to work, the firm provides strong support mecha- nisms to help lawyers stay on top of the game. Tell me how you got the managing partner role in this firm. I'll tell you a bit about Borden Lad- ner Gervais and that comes from it. We were formed as national firm in March 2000. There were five major regional firms at the time: Ladner Downs in Vancouver, Howard Mackie in Calgary, Borden & El- liot in Toronto, Scott & Aylen in Ottawa, and McMaster Gervais in Montreal. I was on the executive committee at Borden & Elliot at the time. As we moved towards our merger, of course, we decided we needed a national managing partner, so the group that had worked together to form the merger asked me if I would like to take that on. And I said, 'Yes I would.' . . . and I've been doing it ever since. Q Q What do you find the biggest challenge to managing the firm? It's a great firm to manage because we've got good people. I think managing any organization like this, with the delivery of services, is making sure you have a firm that every- one is happy to be at. People issues are the biggest challenge, but for the most part we don't have many of those prob- lems. My job at the top is to find out about those problems and deal with them before people vote with their feet. Can you tell me how the management of the firm's six offices is structured? We have the national council, it op- erates like a board. It meets five or six times a year and is primarily involved with strategic planning [and] oversight. There are 15 members on the council. Then we have an executive committee, and I chair that committee. It's comprised of five regional managing partners and two national department leaders. We are in contact on an almost daily basis and meet every second week. And then within each location, we have a similar manage- ment substructure. Our professionals are divided into two departments — business and litigation — with six groups each. Q Associate retention is a big issue these days. What is BLG doing in that area? We are, without a doubt, one of the best development committees in Canada, if not North America. We spend a tremendous amount in investing in professional development, more than the average firm would do. We invest a lot in education and programs, and do a lot of intensive training from new associates to junior partners. We bring people in to do this training and we've developed programs based on what we've seen has worked best in the U.S. and the U.K. Q What would you say are the firm's main or strongest practice areas? I think that there are a couple areas we can say we are strong in. We have the leading practice in investment funds — infrastructure generally, and electricity in particular. Our health law practice is also very strong. Our litigation practice is the largest in the country, and one of the subspecial- ties that's really staked out a claim is class actions. BLG is coming into its own with class action defence work. Right now in Toronto we have 90 class actions, with 50 SEAN WEiR in Montreal. . . . Now a number of these actions are starting to be tried on their merits and they are huge, with respect to the type of plaintiff, the complexity of the documents, and the thousands and thou- sands of documents and witnesses. So you need a very large and experienced bench in order to properly deal with those cases. With the greatest respect to our friends at the litigation boutiques, they don't have that bench. I'm betting BLG will become the dominant class action defence firm over the next 10 years. Q What's the best thing for you about working at BLG? We care about our people. We are a big shop — there is bureaucracy — but we try to keep a human face on things and be supportive of our people. We are not a "lifestyle" firm; we are here to compete and win. But if you subscribe to that, we will do everything to support [lawyers] in dealing with the stresses of practising at this level. We bring people in and they talk about how to manage childcare and so on, but not so you can have a leisure-style work environment. We're in a high-performing environ- ment, and accordingly you will need some tools and assistance to help you achieve work-life balance and stay at the top of your game. We try very hard to provide our folks with that kind of sup- port and flexibility here. To read more of Sean Weir's interview with Canadian Lawyer, visit us online at canadianlawyermag.com www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com FEBRU AR Y 2008 17