Canadian Lawyer InHouse

31 CANADiANLAWyERMAG.CoM/iNhousE april 2014 but we don't have the expertise of the big worldwide service providers so we retain external counsel. Some of the things we have done is ask that the senior partner be the only one who works on the fi le be- cause of the depth of knowledge can tell us what we need to know in about 30 sec- onds as opposed to the junior who would spend a lot more time on it. We have found it to be much more cost-effi cient," says Triggs. Triggs says Manitoba Insurance uses both large national and Winnipeg law fi rms for work in bordering provinces. "Generally speaking we have found that Winnipeg law fi rms charge less than Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver law fi rms do and the work is just as good and we have strong relationships with them and have reduced costs." Law fi rms in Manitoba fi nd they are also getting more work not only locally but also from central Canada for things like employment law says Bob Sokalski of Hill Sokalski Walsh Trippier LLP. "It may be a function of demograph- ics but there seems to be an uptick in employment law," says Sokalski. "Baby boom- ers who are getting to a level in their corporations and they're earning high salaries and a strat- egy in some corporations is to cap their severance exposure and remove someone with high exposure. So they either bring in someone junior to pay them much less or hire back someone in their 50s or 60s on a year-to-year contract." It's a strategy that's become more fre- quently deployed. Sokalski has acted on both sides of those kinds of disputes. For companies on growth paths regu- latory change can have a serious impact says Reis Pagtakhan, a corporate immi- gration lawyer with Aikins Law in Win- nipeg who has done a lot of work lately on changes to the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program. "We had a meeting with members of the CCCA's Manitoba chapter recently and many were almost shell-shocked that these things seem to come out of the blue that can affect their business and busi- nesses they might be looking at acquir- ing or merging. It's really hard to keep up," he says. "I think it may affect growth coming in the next 14 months or so." He says the "accumulative duration rule" which indicates most temporary foreign workers — not all, but most — that come through labour market opin- ions have a maximum of four years in Canada. The fi rst set of people who will hit that cumulative duration will be in April 2015. "So you may fi nd businesses with large numbers of foreign workers not able to renew their foreign workers. So if you're looking at growing or ac- quiring a business what happens if doz- ens or hundreds of your workers have to go home — that will really affect valu- ation and how you move forward to fi ll the gaps." IH Outstanding in our fields. Proud to be acknowledged as one of Canadian Lawyer's Top 10 Prairie Law Firms. 9th Floor - 400 St. Mary Ave | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3C 4K5 | p: 204.949.1312 | www.tmlawyers.com Untitled-4 1 14-03-05 2:26 PM

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