Canadian Lawyer InHouse

9 canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse august 2014 a roundup of legal department news and trends attractive to firms," she says. For Rand, while he saw opportunities at RBC to move into other business units, it was a desire to further specialize in securi- ties law that made him consider a return to law firm practice. "I'm really interested in practising law and the business of practising law. There are a lot of opportunities in a big organiza- tion like a bank to move from the law group into senior business positions but I wanted to maintain my legal practice," he says. Rand's focus at Blakes will be on deriva- tives and securities issues. "I think if you're going to learn to be a derivatives lawyer it's probably best done at one of the big banks so that's what I had been doing at RBC, and there is a strong ap- petite at Blakes to bolster and develop that area in light of all the regulatory reform go- ing on in derivatives." For Av Maharaj, former vice president and chief counsel at Kellogg Canada and Kellogg International, a return to the law firm he was at before going in-house 10.5 years ago was appealing from the perspec- tive of applying entrepreneurial business interests gained during his time in-house. Similar to Rand, Maharaj has moved into an of counsel position at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. For Maharaj his new position came about when Kellogg recently went through a multi-billion restructuring in which all in- ternational vice president positions were af- fected, including his. In fact he assisted with the restructuring. "It was very amicable at the end and I knew fairly well in advance it was going to happen," he says. Maharaj spoke to Canadian Lawyer mag- azine earlier this year in a story about the state of Canadian in-house counsel working for global or U.S.-based companies. "As the business goes, so does legal," Ma- haraj said in January. Last November, the company announced a four-year cost-cutting plan that involved eliminating up to seven per cent of its global workforce, or about 2,000 jobs. Drawing on his global contacts, Maharaj says at Faskens he will be working on merg- ers and acquisitions, looking for transac- tions that clients of the firm would be interested in. "It's really about sourcing mergers and acquisitions for clients of the firm," he says. "It's more about developing the business rather than the legal aspects of it." He says it was more appealing to him than seeking out another in-house position at this time. "This is something entrepre- neurial even in an external context and I thought it was time to do something a little different and leverage some of my skills as a general counsel and my contacts, but also from an in-house perspective I had a lot of exposure to the business and this marries up those skills," he says. IH NOT TOO BIG. NOT TOO SMALL. We are a full-service business law rm that combines Bay Street experience with leadership, teamwork and value. Thanks to our clients, our referral sources and our people, we have grown into a rm that appreciates your unique challenges, has a right-sized approach to service and can build a team that's… JUST RIGHT If this sounds like the right t for you, you've discovered Right-sized Thinking TM . Business Law • Commercial Litigation • Commercial Real Estate Construction • Insolvency & Corporate Restructuring Employment & Labour • Wills, Estates & Trusts ntitled-3 1 14-03-05 2:22 PM

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