Canadian Lawyer InHouse

33 CANAdIANLAwyERMAG.COM/INhOUSE october 2014 In 1976, Howard#(.,)/."ŏ,-. )0,-#4.((#-,+/.| .-&#!".1#!". ("/!-1.-*).!0*&3,- an e!||| Ì0(.!|Ê,.| 2*,#( (()0.),-| ),1,"#(%,-| 'Ê"(!,-| Proud to be named one of 3RXEVMS¸W8ST6IKMSREPÁVQW by Canadian Lawyer magazine. mckenzielake.com Untitled-3 1 14-08-26 2:36 PM would like to do for the property or they have their own vision for the property. I would say building consensus internally and externally as to how to move a proj- ect forward and resolving problems to the satisfaction of the stakeholder group and executing on our vision is our biggest chal- lenge," he says. Because his legal team is so small, Trumper sends a lot of major trans- action work to outside fi rms. Also growing in prominence in Toron- to's downtown core is Ryerson University and along with it the organization's legal department. "Ryerson continues to grow, so in terms of deals and excitement there's so much in the unknown — we have deals coming in the door all the time and op- portunities and possibilities," says general counsel Julia Shin Doi. She recently added to her team with the hiring of a commercial and procurement lawyer from Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP. "We're excited about adding her and we're looking to expand by another legal counsel with litigation and employment law and that will put us at fi ve lawyers plus some part- time contract staff that come in," she says. In August, Ryerson launched its pilot law practice program and has three law practice program students joining the legal depart- ment from January to April 2015. Shin Doi is also teaching a portion of the program and her staff is mentoring and do- ing legal contracts for the LPP's systems providers. On the governance front, she is also im- plementing Diligent Boardbooks, an elec- tronic board portal system. "Universities are great places to work because we have such variety," says Shin Doi. The univer- sity just did a deal with Level39 in London — Europe's largest technology accelerator space for fi nance, retail, and future cities technology. "We have the Digital Media Zone here, which is an incubator and we're ranked fi fth globally and fi rst in Canada. This agreement with Level39 will allow members to have access to space and start- up support in each other's facilities. So members can work in London as well as Toronto. It is similar to what we have in Mumbai, India — we've worked with the Bombay Stock Exchange to set up an incu- bator there and that was my main deal last summer," says Shin Doi. Along with creating subject matter experts in the legal department Shin Doi is working to align legal counsel with the operational department. When it comes to control- ling cost, Shin Doi is going to try Uniform Task-Based Management System coding in her department. "I know TD Bank uses it, the City of Toronto uses it; it will allow me to see effi ciencies in billing. The fi rms will code their legal services according to code so you can see exactly how much time is being spent. We close every quarter and make sure we have a right number and get a forecast for the next quarter and see how much we need to do — whether we need to do more inter- nally and what the external legal services providers need to do." She often works with specialist law fi rms like litigation boutiques on student matters and another for immigration and manages legal pricing closely. "In the end it comes down to relationships and the added value the fi rm provides to the client." IH

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