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law firms have been quick to establish offices in other emerging markets such as China, just one firm has a permanent presence on the continent: Fasken Mar- tineau DuMoulin LLP, which has an office in South Africa's mining capital, Johannesburg. One of the reasons Canadian firms for the most part do not have physi- cal outposts in Africa is they say there is little advantage to doing so. Legal activity for a firm is likely taking place in a number of countries at any one time, so it doesn't make a great deal of sense to set down roots in one place, is how the argument goes. Instead, busi- ness is handled through a combination of cross-Atlantic flights and, for some firms, from offices on the periphery in Huge multinational corporations have oil and natural gas concerns in many countries throughout Africa. WE CAN DO A BILLION-DOLLAR DEAL AND NEVER EVER SEE EACH OTHER [IN NORTH AMERICA]. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY IN AFRICA. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE THERE, THEY HAVE GOT TO SEE YOU, AND THEY HAVE GOT TO TRUST YOU, THEY HAVE GOT TO TRUST YOUR CLIENTS. POUPAK BAHAMIN, NORTON ROSE OR LLP European business centres such as Lon- don and Paris. "We haven't candidly found that an impediment at all," says Jay Kellerman, a Toronto-based partner at Stikeman Elliott LLP and leader of its global mining group, about the lack of a permanent office on the continent. "We deal with Africa through both our offices [in Toronto and Montreal] and our London office is very active in Afri- ca as well." Stikeman's Montreal office's focus on the continent is infrastructure projects such as power generation and oil and gas. Stikeman's work in Africa is divided between raising money for companies with assets as well as merger and acqui- sition activity related to projects or companies there. And it is growing. "I would say that Africa is a very impor- tant geographic area of the world for us for ongoing and for new business," says Kellerman. Stikeman's mining deal book for Africa shows a dip in activity for 2008 and 2009 during the reces- sion and then a ramp up in business in 2010, working on deals such as the US$385-million private placement and prospectus financing for Platmin Ltd. in South Africa, First Uranium Corp.'s $150-million financing, and the joint Uranium One-JSC Atomredmetzoloto Aus$1.2-billion proposed bid for Man- tra Resources Ltd. There are other signs that investment in Africa will only grow. Earlier this year the Canadian government started free-trade negotiations with Morocco, 28 OCTO BER 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com which if completed would be the first free-trade deal with an African country. It is part of the Harper government's push to increase trade between Canada and the continent and would leverage Canada's strengths in sectors such as natural resources and energy as well as telecommunications, agriculture, transportation, education, and infra- structure, says Ottawa. In 2010, bilat- eral trade with Africa reached almost $13 billion, a 72.5-per-cent increase over the previous five years. Because Canadian firms are experts in Canadian, rather than African law, they typically rely on local legal partners to ensure contracts and agreements are enforceable. "You need to invest time and actually go there because it is not shell cANAdA