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officer. A former national president of the Canadian Bar Association and current chairman of the Su- preme Court practice group at Lang Michener LLP, Meehan often serves as a filing agent for cases to be heard by the top court. Most of the time, he reviews and revises a draft fac- tum given to him by a lawyer. "I will then strategize with that lawyer and make the material much more strategic and much more persuasive," says Meehan, who holds a doctorate in civil law from McGill University. Or he will take over a file, write the factum, and argue the case in the Supreme Court. For Scottish-born Meehan, this is an activity unique to Ot- tawa. As he says: "Toronto has the stock exchange, and mergers and acquisitions are primarily Toronto- based. But we have the Supreme Court and the federal government." Through the latter, Ottawa also Eugene Meehan has the largest law firm in the coun- try, thanks to the Justice Department. There are about 1,300 lawyers working for the federal government — about half of them assigned to Justice Can- ada; the rest are with various depart- mental legal-service units throughout the capital. Those numbers are almost on par with the estimated 1,400 Ottawa lawyers in private practice. "We have law firm-sized units in major departments, with significant numbers of lawyers in Health, Defence, Trea- sury Board, and Finance, where there are about 25 lawyers," explains Will McDowell, who left the Toronto office of McCa- rthy Tétrault LLP — where he served as a commercial litiga- tion partner and built a reputation in the field of libel and me- dia law — in May 2005 to join Justice Canada as an associate deputy minister responsible for, among other areas, national security issues as well as legal services for Treasury Board and the Finance Department. With considerable corporate experience on Bay Street and now as a senior government official in Ottawa, McDowell be- lieves there is insufficient "interplay" between the private bar and Justice Canada. "I would like to see us more involved in training young lawyers, because I think there's a mentor deficit in the profession," says McDowell, who serves on the board of directors of The Advocates' Society in Ontario and promotes Justice Canada as an employer of choice for law school grads. "You don't have to go scrambling to try and find work from the high-tech sector if you work in government," says McDow- ell. "There's a steady stream of difficult and interesting stuff to work on — shaping legislation, providing policy advice, being involved in commissions of inquiry, and so on." Even if the high-tech space is competitive, it's also collegial. Several firms, including FMC, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, and LaBarge Weinstein Professional Corp. (formed over 10 years ago by a group of Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP lawyers) that specialize in the sector have formed a "congenial" and informal "mini-tech bar," accord- ing to Houston. "The nice thing about technology deals is that there are usually two or three par- ties to every transaction and each do a separate representation," he explains. In fact, regardless of their spe- cialty, lawyers — and judges — regularly come together through events, continuing education programs, and other initiatives run by the County of Carleton Law Association (CCLA) in Ot- tawa. "The culture here is very respectful and very collegial be- tween the bench and the bar," explains Karen MacLaurin, who has worked for the association since 1975 and is its executive director and head librarian. On the social scene, the CCLA's annual civil litigation con- ference draws hundreds of attendees — from Supreme Court judges to the presidents of the Canadian and Ontario bar as- sociations — and brings together "the right people at the right place at the right time," says MacLaurin. It's a time for schmoozing for lawyers not known for circulating in great numbers within Ottawa's political and diplomatic circles — contrary to some perceptions from outside the city. "A lot of Torontonians don't recognize this is a big town — the political life on Parliament Hill and the legal community are not integrated," says David Scott, the national co-chairman of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP and partner in its Ottawa office. (BLG was formed as a result of a merger with Scott's practice, Scott & Aylen — which he helped form with his dad, IP lawyer Cuthbert Scott — and four other firms eight years ago.) "When it comes time to pick a lawyer, federal politicians from outside the city don't know anybody in the community. Ottawa, to them, is like an island," says Scott, who became the first Canadian to serve as president of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2003. If that's a general rule, he is definitely one of the exceptions. The descendant of four generations of Ot- tawa lawyers (his great-grandfather, Sir Richard Scott, a future Liberal senator, convinced Queen Victoria to declare the city Canada's capital 151 years ago), Scott is one of the city's top go-to law- yers. In Ertel's words — Scott is a "legal institution" whom "ev- erybody respects and looks up to." Having practised law for nearly a half-century as an old- Tom Houston school, multitasking general practitioner in such areas as IP, commercial and criminal litigation, professional negligence and personal injury suits, and administrative law, Scott has gravitas — and an impressive client roster that includes the likes of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who serves as counsel with Heenan Blaikie LLP, primarily in Ottawa. Says Jameson: "David is certainly the pre-eminent litigator in Ottawa, if not the country. You don't get a better litigator than David Scott." www. C ANADIAN mag.com M AY 2008 45