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Niagara Escarpment LIUNA Station in Hamilton industry [off-shoots]." If that range of work is not enough, Guelph is also close enough, and has low enough fees, to capture work from the Toronto area. "They get the same service in Guelph but there is a big difference in the hourly rate," says Rodenburg. Things get more industrial as you move south- west to Kitchener/Waterloo. Bruce Lee, a partner at Giffen Lee LLP, one of the largest locally owned multi-service firms, describes it as an industrial community with many private business corpora- tions and family-owned businesses. "There is a typi- cal commercial base and then there is the high-tech industry. It centres around the University of Water- loo, where many students have become graduates and stayed." It was the high-tech industry that attracted Gowl- ings to set up an office in Kitchener/Waterloo. In 1986, it merged with a local firm of 44 lawyers — Simmons Siber Jenkins. "The attraction was the growing technology market," says John Doherty, managing partner of the Waterloo regional office where intellectual property is a key aspect of the practice. "The merger helped us get a foothold in that market. Our range of services runs the gamut of the needs of a company from start up." Doherty comments on the diverse and entrepreneurial spirit of the Waterloo business community. "It's part of the DNA of Waterloo region's culture. From the Schneiders to the RIMs and the Sandvines, there's a growing and thriving cluster." Richard Trafford, managing part- ner of Miller Thomson for south- western Ontario, is a veteran of what was the oldest local firm in Kitchener/Waterloo. "Sims Clement Eastman had a direct lineage back to 1858," he says. "At the time when we were approached by Miller Thomson in 2002, a great many of our clients were slowly but surely moving to the national stage, and we felt we had to do the same thing to maintain and grow our client base." Trafford says he feels this reality was very much a Windsor skyline has also grown substantially. In 2006, a London of- fice was added when the partners and associates of McCarthy [Tétrault LLP] came over." Trafford feels that other business decisions have impacted positively on the growth of the firm in the region. "Sims operated in the heart of Kitchener but we have moved to the Accelerator Centre in the Uni- versity of Waterloo Research Park. The first floor is tenanted by businesses in their infancy — start-ups that are being incubated. The second floor has the master's and bachelor degrees of business entrepre- neurialism, and we occupy the third floor. There has been a tremendous amount of high-tech activity north of Research Park and the move has been very positive for us." In Guelph, the Miller Thomson office, which has a strong agri-business group, also moved from down- town Guelph to the University of Guelph Research Park. "We literally dropped it in the middle of agri- Canada," says Trafford. "There are hundreds of head offices within walking distance." Gowlings further increased its southwestern Ontario strength with an office in Hamilton in 1995. The Hamilton Bay area has a population of 650,000. Hamilton is one of the oldest cities in On- tario, and its development as a transportation hub, with the largest inland port and the largest cargo- carrying airport in Canada, have made it an active and thriving community. great place to do business. There are a lot of connections." — JOHN DOHERTY, GOWLINGS While most people associate Hamilton with mega- product of the area, which has been growing rapidly. "My office has doubled in size since then. In 2003, we merged with Kearns McKinnon, a firm with about 105 years of history in Guelph, and that office lithic steel companies, Paul Milne of Simpson Wigle Law LLP says what you see from the Skyway Bridge of the steel plants is only one view of the city. "There is certainly an industry base here, much of it family owned, but the community has changed enormously with the introduction of a health-care industry cen- tred around the huge research facilities at McMaster University. It is one of the major universities in the www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com FEBRU AR Y 2009 33 "Southwestern Ontario is a