Canadian Lawyer InHouse

In Alberta there is a lot of project based work. Especially with the oil and gas companies there is work in setting up a new plant, for example. There is a lot of regulatory and other work to be done setting up the plant. But once built they don't need that person anymore. So for that reason we've seen more project counsel used here. SHEKHAR PARMAR, The Counsel Network Canada office three days a week but Diageo has no long-term commitment. "People ask if they should come to me or Karen (the Cognition lawyer) which proves it is working," said Bolhuis. "The role of in-house counsel is evolving. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation and you need to figure out what will work." What was supposed to be a six-month arrangement has turned into a longer stay for the Cognition lawyer and clients from the internal business units now see the lawyer from Cognition as part of the legal department. Organizations that offer this kind of temporary assistance can be used to bring in help when needed. Some departments choose to have certain projects hived off or an entire practice area. "Our model is not a staffing agency —  it's really a fractional in-house 34 • a u gu st 2013 counsel role where you might not have the head count to hire but you need the help," says Dinsmore. Shekhar Parmar of The Counsel Network also works with in-house counsel to find solutions for those who find their departments short-staffed for a variety of reasons. He says a client, the Alberta Electric System Operator, had three lawyers and needed mat leave coverage several times and opted to hire a contract lawyer each time. "When we look at those kinds of scenarios, the investigation I do with the client is to ask what is the type and nature of the work that needs to get done and what is the complexity level?" says Parmar. "In some cases the push back to bringing on contractual employees for a period of a year is that if there is a steep learning curve, they don't want to waste three out of the 12 months teaching somebody the type of work it's going to be before they get real results." The upside is it can be a cheaper option than getting a secondment or farming the work out to external counsel. In the case of Canada Safeway, another client, the reason they went with a secondment was they were able to re-juggle the portfolio so the secondee would be dealing INHOUSE with commercial real estate matters, especially since leasing was their focus. "They thought that although they could get a contract term employee they could also get a junior student as a secondment and they had a long-term relationship with the firm they worked with so bringing someone from there into the fold made sense," he says. Parmar says it's tough to get junior independent contract counsel who will be experienced enough to take on the role because they haven't had enough experience. In the U.S it's become common for lawyers to go down the path of becoming a contract lawyer but it's a less familiar model here in Canada. "Unless you want someone at the fiveyear plus mark it's challenging. I think one of the other challenges in the market generally, in Canada compared to the U.S., is we have a very underdeveloped legal contractor market in terms of the number of lawyers actively engaging in being employees," he says. It is often viewed as a somewhat fragile and risky move for a general counsel to bring in someone unknown for a short period of time. "Especially in some of the small legal departments, many general counsel are trying to build a sense of value in the organization and they're very afraid to get someone who will be in there for 10 months and doesn't really give a damn about how that long-term relationship plays out," says Parmar. "They may not have the same understanding of the culture of the organization. They're very cautious about upsetting what they've been building up for a while." That's where the in-house counsel might feel they can control a secondment more than an independent contractor. But secondment was too costly an option for the AESO. "We tried it early on with a lawyer second to us from one of the firms but the sense I get is they are kind of torn — one foot here and one at the firm. I would rather have somebody fully committed to us," says Larry Kram, general counsel and corporate secretary at Alberta Electric System Operator in Calgary. Kram was the only lawyer in-house at AESO for a number of years until about

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