Canadian Lawyer InHouse

need to do is have the appropriate advisers giving you advice. It's been an educational process for the company to get used to having in-house counsel that is the main point of contact for all legal matters. Will you manage the work internally or externally? I'm the only lawyer in this department. In 2011, we had $3 million in outside legal fees because there wasn't a lawyer in-house at that time. We had a large transaction when we took TimberWest private. As a result we incurred a lot of legal fees. In this past year, we were in the neighbourhood of $2 million in fees and next year we anticipate we will be in the same range given we are involved in a major piece of litigation and in addition we are active in the area of trying to bring about some policy changes on a federal government level on foreign trade. We are also looking at acquisitions and therefore budgeting for about $2 million in legal fees. a five-per-cent discount on everything we do but you wonder sometimes if that discount is illusory because, if you believe what some people say, the law firms just add up the hours and pump them up to mitigate the discount. I don't know if that's true or not but certainly there's a perception it can have an almost nil effect at the end of the day. When you think about a large bill SPECIALIZATION IN BUSINESS LAW Classes Starting in September 2013 Part-time, Executive LLM program for corporate counsel and practising lawyers Information Sessions Do you ever discuss diversity of staffing with the law firms you work with? No, but if I give work to a law firm and all the lawyers who show up are male and white I do notice it. I may not necessarily comment on it but I do take note of it and may ask the question: 'Do you not have any female lawyers or ethnically diverse lawyers in your office?' I don't make it a requirement but is something I do note mentally. five per cent isn't necessarily going to make or break the bank. I don't generally go for alternative fee arrangements. The most effective relationships are the ones I know I can trust totally in terms of integrity and quality of the work and at the end of the day the fact is I have a budget I need to manage and hopefully a firm will help me achieve that to the extent they can. IH Thursday, February 7th, 12:00 to 2:00pm Thursday, March 7th, 5:30 to 7:00pm U of T Faculty of Law, Faculty Lounge 78 Queen's Park, Toronto No registration required. Please feel free to drop in anytime during these hours. Taught by U of T Faculty of Law professors, together with top international faculty from MIT-Sloan School of Management and expert practitioners. Are you looking to drive additional value from your outside law firms? I hire the best lawyer I can afford for the transaction given the size and complexity and material involved. I won't hire a $700-an-hour lawyer for a simple transaction — that to me is value when you look at the issue and mentally assess the complexity of it and assess what is the best lawyer for the job. I know a lot of people talk about discounts and discounts are great, in theory. One of our law firms has an arrangement where they give us TIME: EVENT: For more information, call 416-978-1400 or visit: http://www.law.utoronto.ca/programs/GPLLM.html Supported by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) - Ontario Chapter and in partnership with Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business. w w w. c a n a d i a n law y er m a g . c o m / i n h o u s E ntitled-2 1 February 2013 • 29 13-01-07 9:58 AM

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