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group has emerged that bases hiring on that information. "There has been much more . . . 'This is a good thing, you ought to be doing it, show us what you are doing,'" says Krebs. "And then, also, on our matters we want a diverse panel. We don't want just old white males, or young white males. We want a diverse panel. And so, you are seeing that. And that has sort of been the evolution." Broley says while the desire to work with legal firms that value and promote diversity is at the prefatory stage, in time it development of products and services that reflect the needs of Canadian consumers. "What we are trying to get through diver- sity is not only the obvious, but diversity of thought," says Allgood. "You don't want to hire the cookie cutter that everybody . . . went to the same law school, thought the same way, that we really want to have a workforce in our context that has a lot of different experiences, comes from different countries, backgrounds, cultural issues. And through that, you get a diver- sity of thought in developing products, or "Our general counsel sits on the diversity committee, and he certainly bends the ear of anyone at the large law firms when he can on the issue, because it is an important issue." — NICOLE BROLEY, DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP will grow into more of an issue. It already has become an important one for the lawyers at Deloitte & Touche. "Diversity is a huge initiative within our organization," she says. "Our general counsel sits on the diversity committee, and he certainly bends the ear of anyone at the large law firms when he can on the issue, because it is an important issue. "And I think that there will be a shift over time. Maybe it will take us a little bit longer than it has in the United States, but I think it is important. And I think people want to see that in the law firms that are helping them out . . . they are reflective of the community around us." Lloyd says having a diverse group of lawyers is good business. "I think some of the law firms have just sort of naturally gone into a diversity exercise for language purposes, trying to address the needs of their clients because Canadians are so multicultural," she says. "We have gone beyond the English/French abilities into Chinese. China is such a big market. There are certainly more opportunities if there is a language specialist within the law firms. I think we have seen some of that, too, as a side issue." And diversity doesn't only have to reflect ethnicity or language. Diverse legal training and backgrounds can lead to the 36 OC T O BER 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com sales, or dealing with your clients." The panel also discussed the impact of increased regulations. The recession has caused almost every company in North America to tighten its belt. On top of that, the regulatory regime has become more onerous, including changes to the Competition Act, the Companies' Creditor Arrangement Act, and proposed health and safety laws in Ontario. "I find that there are many more questions from our internal clients, basically the company that we serve, about how to understand the changing regulations; how they impact us," says Lloyd. "There is probably more of an expectation, too, that we have a good understanding of the impact without having first to go to outside counsel. So more research demands and more quick answers [are] expected or hoped for from our department." One way in-house counsel are keeping up is through technology. A number of law firms issue case briefings or legislative reviews by e-mail that can be invaluable to corporate counsel who often do not have For more on the round- table, including video high- lights of the event, visit www. canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse the time, staffing, or resources to research every issue. "I think I probably get half a dozen news feeds a day, and probably actively read 10 articles, and probably only a five- to 10-minute read each," says Vibert. "But those news feeds and that continuing legal education is invaluable. It would have been very, very difficult to keep up in this way 10 years ago." One ser- vice roundtable participants are using is the ACC Newsstand — a web-based news feed service that allows searches by spe- cific issue or topic area. This is similar to other services such as Mondaq, and allow in-house counsel to keep track of a variety of different issues. "There was one not long ago, I think on occupational health and safety, something that I would not ordinarily think of myself," says Broley. "But 'pending legislative changes' popped up, and I thought, 'OK. Well, that is . . . a good thing to have on your radar screen as it goes forward.'" Strategies discussed during the round- table focused on the importance of outside counsel understanding the businesses they serve. Secondments were seen as a popu- lar way to enhance this understanding. Secondments are also a valuable tool for law firms during tougher economic times. "I think the current economic times really do make the firms more amenable to the whole secondment" idea, says Allgood. "If they are going to have someone who is underemployed, or someone who you actually have to think about letting go because of their particular economics, to provide them with less-than-market rate for a secondment period is something that they are much more interested in doing than they might have been five years ago." Other strategies legal departments are using to control costs include the use of request for proposals, discounts, and alternative billing structures. Vibert spoke of getting the appropriate lawyer for the project, saying often Hewlett- Packard deals with lawyers at the part- ner level. However, for some projects the cost of partner would not be appro- priate. "Well, we are very familiar with this effort too," Krebs says. "We refer to it as to reconnect cost and value, and we call it our ACC Value Challenge."