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REGIONAL WRAP-UP The circus ain't peanuts anymore 1984, few have likely considered the legal acrobatics behind the scenes to bring the awe-inspiring spectacles to the stage. Among the almost 4,000 O employees worldwide, there are 1,800 at the Montreal international headquar- ters alone — including the 12-member in-house counsel team led by René Khayat. The 45-year-old vice president of legal and business affairs joined the circus as an in- house counsel in 1998 and climbed the corporate ladder to the highest post two years ago. "It's not just a management job," Khayat tells Canadian Lawyer. "I'm still a lawyer and get involved," he says, explaining that was a condition in ac- cepting the position. "It's essential to f the close to 80 million spectators who have attended a Cirque du Soleil show since its inception in continue to work as a lawyer." His team is split into three fields. There René Khayat is intellectual property with Catherine Delorme as director overseeing legal advisers Maude Vézina, Maryse Tel- lier, Marianne Proulx, Marie- Pierre Simard, Beth Trister and paralegal Patricia Mar- leau. Anne-Marie Papineau is senior legal adviser for the corporate group with legal ad- viser Félix Duval and parale- gal Carolina Rivas. Papineau's counterpart in the commer- cial wing is Maude Pariseau with her legal advisers Isabelle Guilbeault, Geneviève Paradis, and Marianne Polnicky-Racine. Another adviser, Su Ling Yap, is based in Singa- pore to cover the Asia-Pacific region. The world famous Cirque provides jobs for many other Montreal lawyers directly and indirectly. While most of its legal work is done by Khayat's team, he Law Specialistson Your Team! We help you help your clients. Call us. Get Our Environmental Environmental Specialists*on Your Team! Our team of environmental lawyers includes 5 Environmental Law Specialists* still has to turn to outside counsel when the Cirque needs assistance on such matters as immigration and taxes since its workers and more than 1,000 artists represent at least 40 nationalities and speak 25 different languages. And sometimes he needs the help of specialized experts like Stéphane Gilker of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. He has acted as outside counsel for the Cirque on copyright matters since the early to mid-1990s, longer than Khayat has been on board. Noting the Cirque "is the biggest con- tentious enterprise in Canada (with its international scope)," Gilker says he thrives on the "uncommon and not day- to-day" cases that arise from the client that takes up anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent of his practice at any given time during the year. "I'm very privileged to work on such projects," he says point- ing to the LOVE show in Las Vegas fea- turing the music of the Beatles and an www.willmsshier.com * Certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada Juli Abouchar 416 862 4836 Doug Petrie 416 862 4835 John Willms 416 862 4821 Donna Shier 416 862 4822 Marc McAree 416 862 4820 ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY & RESOURCES LAW 12 JANU AR Y 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Canadian Lawyer #MS07-25 – 7" x 4-7/8" PHOTO: CAMIRAND 2006