Canadian Lawyer InHouse

45 CANAdIANLAwyERMAG.COM/INhOUSE october 2014 P r o f e s s i o n a l P r o f i l e corporate reorganization. However, as the trust company's only lawyer, she missed the intellectual stimulation of working with other lawyers. So when she noticed a search fi rm was headhunting an assistant general counsel for SaskPower, she applied for, and got the job. "I liked that SaskPower had a legal department with six lawyers," she re- calls. "I liked the collegiality and also that my role was not limited to fi nance. I was re- sponsible for managing the lawyers in the commercial side of the department, which was separate from the litigation side." Verret Morphy notes that SaskPower was a very different company when she joined it in 2005 than it is today. Regulatory changes have compelled the utility to reduce its en- vironmental footprint while the province's surge in economic and population growth have boosted electricity demand by an an- nual average between 2010 and 2013 of 3.3 per cent — more than double that of the preceding decade. SaskPower's need to replace obsolete infrastructure and move into growth mode had a signifi cant impact on her legal team, says Verret Morphy. The number of in-house lawyers has almost doubled to 10 since she joined, but even that increase hasn't matched SaskPower's capital budget, which has jumped by 400 per cent in the same period. Verret Morphy has pioneered ways to make more effective use of her legal team. The in-house counsel developed a suite of standard form contracts that SaskPower's business units can download from the util- ity's web site. "The agreements are struc- tured so that the business users can con- clude the deals without vetting by the legal department," she says. "We've routinized as many low-risk transactions as possible so the legal department can focus on more complex tasks." This autumn, when the Boundary Dam plant powers up, Verret Morphy and her le- gal team can fi nally hand off one of the most complex of their projects. IH seconD snapshoT T h E L A w y E R rachelle Verret Morphy T h E C O M P A N y saskPower (regina) • Assistant general counsel at saskPower since 2005, and general counsel since 2011; director of two wholly owned subsidiaries: NorthPoint energy solutions Inc. and saskPower International Inc. • Manager, tax and legal consulting, concentra Financial (regina, 2003-05) • Private practice at McDougall Gauley (saskatoon, 1996-98) and MacPherson Leslie & tyerman LLP (regina, 1998-2003) • Law degree from University of saskatchewan, b. comm. (Hons) from University of ottawa; cA designation KEITH MOULDING

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