Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/1336129
www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse 17 WHAT ARE THE KEY REASONS FOR THE CHANGE IN SPENDING VS LAST YEAR? 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Issues around the pandemic Sending more work out The business grew Bringing more work into the legal department Isolated/one-off situation, which led to higher fees Other 30% 20% 14% 28% 38% 18% WOULD YOU SAY YOU ARE MORE LOYAL TO: 8.96% A firm 79.10% The lawyer in the firm 8.96% Neither of these 2.99% Other Stikeman Elliott and retains the firm for most significant matters; but in the case of smaller regional firms, loyalty lies more with an individual lawyer. "Stikeman Elliott is our primary firm and that has come from relationship building over the past two decades because they have been working with us since Wolseley first came to Canada, so we have built up relationships in their offices across the country," says Kerr. "We also use a smaller regional firm for litigation matters and we work with one individual lawyer so, if he left, we would take our work with him." A practical approach and a good under- standing of the business were cited by survey respondents as the most important attributes "It's easy to forget or to find the opportunity to take breaks, so it becomes one long, solid workday." Greg Kerr, Wolseley Canada in a law firm, while diversity ranked at the bottom of the list of priorities. "I'm not surprised at the time the survey was sent out that diversity was last," says Ramjass. "I can assure you that, by next year, diversity will not be the lowest on the list of priorities. For us at McDonald's, we are definitely going to be looking more at diversity in terms of who our service providers are." Kerr believes that a practical approach and a good understanding of the business really go hand in hand. "If you know what we're doing you have a better opportunity to identify what's important to us, so you'll come to understand what kind of value it is that we're looking for," he says. He also values regular communication, which was the attribute ranked in third place by survey respondents. Wolseley's legal department recently implemented Thomson Reuters' Legal Tracker for managing external spend, which also provides external counsel with the opportunity to post updates, as a means of encouraging more regular communication from law firm partners. Almost all respondents agreed that they are stretched too thinly at work, which Richard refers to as the "victim of our success syndrome." "It's the reality of any good in-house department because the better you are at what you do and the closer you are to your business units, the more work will trickle down your way," says Richard. In fact, 64 per cent of survey respondents said that their average (actual) work week is in excess of 45 hours, which compares to only 54 per cent working that many hours in the previous year's survey — an increase that some believe may be due to the remote working situation. "Since we've been working from home, we're all packing our calendars from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the expectation that we're going to be available at all times," says Kerr. "It's easy to forget or to find the opportunity to take breaks, so it becomes one long, solid workday." Richard concurs that teleworking is part of the problem, while she says another factor is the exceptional nature of the pandemic situation that created many new realities for the business at VIA Rail. "Just because you're at home, it doesn't mean you shouldn't take half an hour to go and have lunch and breathe and just recharge your energy," she says.