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LAW OFFICE MANAGEMENT in his career — and in doing so found an innovative model that works so well for him that he is unlikely to switch trains again. After close to 20 years working as an in-house counsel, mostly in senior positions in large companies, he wanted, as he put it, "to work to live, rather than live to work." But, like many others with similar ambitions, he was well aware that the legal profes- sion did not present him with many at- tractive options. Working on his own as a consultant was the most obvi- ous choice and that is what Giblon did for a couple years. But he found he did not enjoy "beating the bushes" to drum up business. There was nothing in his career as a corporate counsel that prepared him for the role of rainmaker and he soon concluded, "It's not my forte." Yet, it was also obvious that there to provide corporate counsel services to companies that either don't have in- house counsel or need to expand their legal departments on a part-time or temporary basis. It's a business and operational model that is rare, if not unique, in Canada. Montreal-based Delegatus Legal Services anything that created drag and waste." For Cognition, as for Axiom, re-en- "The more productive firms were those that either conformed very closely to the prevailing model or those that had departed very highly from traditional way of doing it." — JENNIFER JENNINGS, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA was no place for him in a traditional law firm — even if he found one that would accommodate his desire for balance and flexibility. After years of working in-house, he had no book of business that he could bring to a firm, and, he says, "nobody's going to take a 20-plus-year lawyer and slot him in as an associate." Now, he and more than a dozen other lawyers in similar circumstances have found what is, for them, the perfect so- lution at Toronto-based Cognition LLP. It's a law firm with virtually no infra- structure that hires lawyers on contract Inc. also offers in-house-counsel-type services to start-up companies, as do a handful of small operations, mostly comprised of individual consultants, one example of which is Ottawa-based Vir- tual General Counsel. But, in the United States, the concept of a virtual corporate law department that occupies the middle ground be- tween the traditional law firm and the traditional in-house lawyer is beginning to gain some traction. Several U.S. firms have adopted this model, the prime ex- ample being New York-based Axiom Legal Solutions Inc., which has mush- roomed into a network of 200 lawyers serving Fortune 100 companies during the eight years since it was founded by a couple of associates who set out to "put the traditional law firm in a wind tunnel, like engineers would do, and strip away gineering the traditional law firm has clearly paid off. Cognition co-founder Rubsun Ho says his firm has doubled its revenues each year since launching three years ago, retaining all but two of its law- yers, only one of whom left for a more traditional organization af- ter finding the innovative structure of the firm was not a good fit. This is obviously just one example. The University of Alberta study examined a wide variety of innovations that took many different forms; its findings pointed not to the success of any specific strategy but to a conclusion, based on statis- tical analysis, that big bold changes are better than little cautious ones. In fairness, the study also con- cluded that you could succeed by doing nothing at all. But, then again, as Nash points out, it depends on how you measure success. "People go into a traditional firm and they're set up to produce the most in terms of revenue and billings. But if you talk to the people in some of these firms, they'll say, 'Yes, I do well. I get paid well and get good work. But would I look for another job? Absolutely.' At a more inno- vative firm, on the other hand, the levels of dissatisfaction might be lower." At Cognition, Ho has his own defini- tion of success: "We are able to provide a number of lawyers with an alternative way of practising law that allows them to spend more time with their families and also make a decent living." RainMaker Group Tel: Fax: www.rainmakergroup.ca 22 A UGUST 2008 www. Law ye rmag.com