Canadian Lawyer

OPINION Back Page By Jim Middlemiss Future is bright for mid-size firms 54 September 2013 www.CANADIAN hamstrung by the lawyers they advise, so the professional management argument doesn't hold as much water as its espousers think. In fact, the mid-size firms — usually run by a practising partner — are probably closer to clients and practice issues than many law firm managers. 3. The middle can't disappear Another reason mid-size firms won't disappear is in any industry, some firms are always in the middle. They might be there permanently, transitioning upwards or downwards, but there is always a middle. 4. Recruiting landscape has shifted With big firms hiring fewer people, the hiring landscape has shifted to favour employers and mid-size firms will benefit in attracting higher-quality legal talent. 5. Poor economy spells opportunity The law is being commoditized in a number of areas and legal costs are a focus for corporate clients. That should be music to mid-size firms' ears, provided of course they have their own costs in check. I've noticed a change in the past few years when I interview in-house lawyers. They are increasingly willing to consider using regional law firms or firms outside major centres for routine legal work. They realize they can get a good quality product for less money. They also know mid-size firms are less likely to over-lawyer a file and they won't be nickelled and dimed over disbursements. You may not get retained for bet-the-farm litigation or a cross-border merger, but you can be very profitable. L a w ye r m a g . c o m 6. Big will get small Some large national law firms won't make it and will implode for financial reasons, which will lead to the creation of more mid-size firms as lawyers go off and do their thing. 7. Canada is a mid-size economy The reality is that Canada's economy is dominated by small- and medium-size, family-run businesses. Most do not need — or want — the services of large multijurisdictional and multidisciplinary law firms, which favours mid-size firms. If local clients are looking at global markets, midsize firms can leverage the growing array of law firm and professional services firm alliances to guide their clients to success. That's not to say mid-size firms won't have to change to remain competitive, especially if Canada allows alternative business structures like the U.K. But every firm has to change or face demise at the hands of market forces. This is not new; it's just become more immediate. It might mean the mid-size opportunity lies in being purely a commercial law firm or a litigation or tax boutique or a retail law juggernaut (i.e. blending consumer legal services, such as family, children, wills and estates). It means building a mix of legal services that best suits the community and local industries in which the firm operates. Clients want lawyers they can trust. They want lawyers who return calls promptly, who provide efficient and effective service, and whose bill is not going to cause cardiac arrest. Keep costs in check, hire skilled, entrepreneurial lawyers, build a focused array of complementary legal services that target your market, and then service the heck out of clients at a reasonable price. Do that and there's no reason why mid-size firms will become extinct. Jim Middlemiss blogs about the legal profession at WebNewsManagement.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JimMiddlemiss. Sara Tyson P oor mid-size law firms, they don't get much respect in a world where big gets bigger and small is considered vogue. Take the recent CBA Legal Futures report, which predicts midsize law firms will be squeezed at one end by "efficient, cost-effective specialists" and at the other by "large firms with professional management, large capital assets, multi-disciplinary capabilities, multi-jurisdictional presence, and market domination." The report warns they may "splinter into specialties or disappear altogether." I've seen this story before. Legal futurists have been predicting the demise of mid-size law firms for about as long as I've been writing about the legal profession — that would be for a quarter of a century, making me old and the futurists wrong. Mid-size firms like WeirFoulds LLP in Toronto and Parlee McLaws LLP in Alberta are building strong, independent regional firms, some of which date back more than a century. I'm betting over the next quarter century — during which I will still be writing, since I have a one-year-old who hasn't figure out how to monetize herself yet — mid-size firms will flourish. Here's why: 1. Mid-size can be nimble While specialists might be nimble, efficient, and cost-effective, there are only so many hours in a day. They cannot begin to tackle all the opportunities and their client service will suffer when they try to do too much. Mid-size firms, those between 25 and 100 lawyers, can be just as nimble as specialists and certainly much quicker (and fraught with far fewer legal conflicts) than larger firms. 2. They have lower overhead In the 1990s, some of Canada's top law firms toyed with outside managers to run their ship. That experiment quickly sunk. Yes, large firms now have lawyers dedicated to management positions and employ experts in business development, HR, communications, professional development, and technology (also known as more overhead), but these people are often

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