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 A p r I L 2 0 1 5 45 says Fowles. "What we are doing here is to do certain types of work that our cli- ents come to us for over and over again, whether it's contract review or due dili- gence or reorganizations, among other things, but to do it on a fixed-fee basis and hopefully to do it more cost effec- tively from Halifax than we could do it in Toronto." Yet that sort of model may not go far enough, according to some of the non-law firms that specialize in services as diverse as training, e-discovery, and compliance. "Law firms in Canada and elsewhere don't even know what they don't get any more," says David Curran, global director of risk and compliance at omson Reuters (which also owns Canadian Lawyer). "ey are out of the party here in what has become the ma- jor concern with these organizations, which is reputational risk." Both Curran and his colleague, Friedrich Blase from omson Reuters' legal process outsourcing unit Pangea3, say law firms, in their role of trusted ad- viser, are oen too slow to respond to reputational risk, especially at a time when social media can quickly escalate an issue and demand an instant reply. "e pace of change is so rapid and the volume of law so significant that com- panies have set up GRC (governance risk and compliance) supplemented by companies like ours who create these inventories, track the changes, and help them establish workflow and technol- ogy that processes this information and spits out information that they need to act on," says Curran. "Law firms are trying to play catch- up, and they have opportunities here. But they are not invested in technology and they are not process focused. And most of the legal work that exists today is process oriented. eir industry is de- signed for advice and the industry has moved to process." at's a claim that surprises Sally Gomery, a partner at Norton Rose Ful- bright Canada's Ottawa office. "In terms of risk and compliance work generally, the pie is growing and that reflects the awareness that there really is a business and a commercial risk to not having process in place," she says. "So I have been seeing an increase in work for law firms, and I don't get the impres- sion that there's a decrease of work that would otherwise be going to law firms going to accounting firms." e exception to that is forensic data crunching, where the Big Four account- ing firms may have the edge, but where they usually work closely with law firms, she says. "When you are faced with a threat to your commercial or business livelihood, you need assistance from a variety of fronts," she adds. "You need as- sistance from a legal front, you need as- sistance from a communications front, and from an accounting front. In my experience law firms co-ordinate that work and they do it because it maintains privilege. I have no doubt that there are some service providers who say 'we are faster on our feet.' I look at our law firm and we can provide service around the world, 24 hours a day, so I am not quite sure what advantage these other service providers are offering." On WestlawNext Canada, you can search all content with a single request. Case law and legislation, as well as exclusive annotations, commentary, legal memos and court documents. Related content is continuously recommended, allowing you to expand your search for additional insight. Discover more at westlawnextcanada.com 00227MO-A48600 SEARCH RESULTS SUGGEST RELATED CONTENT FOR ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS.

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