Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m F e b r u A r y 2 0 1 5 11 takes four to six months to get complete disclosure from the police to the defence. So if the trial estimate is off — say a trial is estimated to take two days and it's not com- pleted in two days — it may be three, four, or six months down the road before you get further dates because of the backlog of the justice system." When it comes to predicting trial times, it's better to overestimate slightly, says White, who notes greater discussion between counsel as to what to expect dur- ing the proceedings would help as well. The volume of disclosure has expanded in the last five years with the increasing number of devices police can search. "It used to be that you'd get a case and it was the size of a binder. Now, every case I have is a banker's box, at least, because they're getting phone records, they're getting videos, they're getting notes, they're doing computer searches, computer forensic test- ing," he says. Counsel are trying to be efficient when they estimate trial times, says criminal lawyer David Bayliss, who notes he doesn't know a single lawyer who would intention- ally lowball their prediction. Unforeseen events during trials are just "the nature of the beast," he adds. "It does sometimes happen that cases turn out to be a lot more complex. Issues arise sometimes in the course of a trial that have to be dealt with. But I don't see it as a chronic problem in my experience." Judges also have a role in estimates for trial times, especially where there has been a judicial pretrial, because, says Bayliss, "no estimate is set unless a judge signs off on it." — YaMrI TaDDeSe yamri.taddese@thomsonreuters.com y ou have got to wonder how John Brussa does it. He is a 58-year-old tax lawyer. The son of an Ital- ian immigrant labourer he says he knew nothing about tax when he entered the University of Wind- sor law school in the late '70s. But from his first law class he knew he wanted to do tax. "It just clicked for me," he says. "I've got that type of brain." Today, he is not only a much sought-after tax expert he is also vice chairman of Burnet Duckworth & Palmer LLP, "the only law firm I ever worked for." All of which is a full-time job by any measure. Remarkably, he also sits on the boards of 13 publicly traded companies and two private equity firms. That makes him the busiest board director in Alberta, and pos- sibly Canada. In addition to all that he is an active volunteer with the RESOLVE campaign against homelessness in Calgary. Add an active home life with "a very sup- portive partner," frequent travel, a mild addiction to golf, and it is no wonder his 23rd floor corner office is a clutter of books, papers, and memorabilia from an extraordinarily busy life. Brussa laughs off any suggestions he is overworked and insists he is surrounded by a lot of good people. He also says his private and business lives are intertwined. In his view that lightens the burden of obligation because he considers many of his clients and board member colleagues as friends. But his affable, self-effacing exterior should not be mistaken as evidence of anything but an iron dedication to his work. He says though a lot of the people on the "something like 50" boards he has served on over his 33-year-long law career are friends, that has not stopped him, as a board member, from firing some of them. "They usually stop being friends then," he says. As a director his duty is to protect shareholder interests and he is adamant he does not permit personal relations to interfere with that obligation. As an example of putting shareholder interests first he tells a story of the son of one of his early mentors. That mentor in the mid-1980s had brought Brussa in on the ground floor of an innovative tax scheme known as royalty trusts, which the young lawyer then helped the man devel- op. Brussa acknowledges he owes much of his subsequent THe KInG oF BoarDS \ At L A N t I C \ C e N t r A L \ W e s t regIoNAL WrAp-up John brussa W e s t Continued on page 12 A DAILY BLOG OF CANADIAN LEGAL NEWS LEGALFEEDS.CA FEEDS LEGAL POWERED BY ntitled-1 1 2014-12-19 12:07 PM

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