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required in any agreements, you can bet- ter understand what your client is able to provide," he says. "The only reason that this is significantly different from other sectors is, oftentimes the space will be as unknown to the investor as it is to the lawyer." Accordingly, Ground and colleague Jim Ayres, a partner in the munici- pal, planning, and environmental law group, recently completed a course at the University of Toronto's Centre for the Environment on carbon trading in the international market. "We are at the very early days of this green technology space, but it's going to be a very active sector for very many years to come," says Ground. "The more expertise we can build up, the better we're able to serve our clients, and in carbon trading there will certainly be a boatload of activity. . . . One of the most rewarding things about this field is, you get to learn a lot about a brand new industry and what companies are doing. And it's going to help clean up this planet a bit, which isn't so bad." Elizabeth Harrison, a partner at Farris Vaughan Wills & Murphy LLP in Van- couver, acknowledges it can take more time to understand a client's clean-tech business than a conventional startup. She headed a legal team of a half-dozen lawyers at the firm in Day4 Energy's IPO. "We spent an awful lot of time with the client and a lot of time at their plant," she says. "There aren't very many solar companies, although there were some that went public in the U.S., so we were looking at what and how they did things, although Day4 differentiated from them. So to really understand the difference, we had to see it." She points out that Day4 has no Canadian clients yet but will be selling its solar power to Germany, a world leader in clean-tech energies, and to California, which is emerging as the most progressive jurisdiction in the U.S. While Farris also hasn't created a for- mal clean-tech practice group, Chris Gora, a lawyer in the firm's IP group, is focusing his practice on the emerging sector. "There are just more companies out there that are gaining traction in the area and coming to us," he says. As well, he is building a solid network of contacts. "A lot of this clean technology is being developed at a pretty rapid pace now," he observes. "What I like about it is there is everything from patent licens- ing issues [to] financing, regulatory is- sues, carbon offset credits, and it's got a real international scope to it." At Faskens in Vancouver, Paul Wilson, a partner and head of its regional public- private partnership and national energy and environmental groups, has a com- plement of project-based files he works on with a team of lawyers. Following the B.C. government's call for proposals for clean energy sources, the firm acted for three wind-technology clients, including the 25-megawatt Mount Hays Project in Prince Rupert by Katabatic Power Corp., a 180-megawatt project from Dokie Wind Energy, and Bear Mountain Wind Ltd.'s 120-megawatt project. CLEAN-TECH LINGO Lawyers across Canada are ascending a learning curve about environmentally clean technologies that include (but certainly aren't limited to): SOLAR AND WIND POWER — Both means of power generation have been around for several decades, but advancements are bringing both into mainstream power grids. BIOFUELS OR BIOENERGY — Ethanol derived from plants (mostly corn and sugar cane) or wood waste (such as forests ravaged by the pine beetle) processed to fuel automobiles. RUN-OF-RIVER — A method of utilizing rugged topography to divert a volume of river water to a higher elevation to generate electrical power. TIDAL POWER — Harnessing oceanic tidal ebbs and flows with huge propellers or paddlewheel-type mechanisms to generate electricity. POWER-GRID DISTRIBUTION — As technologies evolve, power grids in jurisdictions across the country will be upgraded or retrofitted to transmit new energy sources. CARBON FINANCE — Accommodation is being made for the purchase and trade of carbon emissions credits and storage, with companies launching to broker activities. — DLC It took roughly three years work- ing with the clients to see the projects through, he says. "That's a common time frame after getting the permit agreement after putting into place all engineering and construction agreements and get- ting project financing," explains Wilson. "It's project-based work rather than transactional work. In project-based work, what the client needs is a team of lawyers who understand the indus- try and are generally able to take them through all the steps to do the project." The experience provides valuable exper- tise. "You end up with a lot of project- specific knowledge." Lawyers at Faskens are able to share what they glean from clients with a co- branding initiative it has undertaken with the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie LLP, through which clients are updated monthly about developments within the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration that was launched by the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington to de- velop regional strategies to address cli- mate change. The initiative enables the firm to market its wealth of expertise to the clean-tech sector without breaking out a formal practice group. Yet firms of all sizes are able to profit from the growing number of business startups in clean-tech sector. Dianne Saxe, a Toronto-based certified special- ist in environmental law, is a sole prac- titioner who traditionally advises clients on environmental issues ranging from contaminated sites, audits, approvals to compliance. In recent years she's worked with several clients launching innovative alternatives for energy and waste, along with carbon-emissions trading. "The social pressure is helping," she says of the sector's skyrocketing popularity. "It's coming from consumers, shareholders, and employees, and innovators are le- veraging that pressure to inspire incen- tives to go to clean tech." She says she expects the current down- turn in Ontario's industrial base will serve as a boon to the clean-tech sector. "This is pushing people harder and moving us forward and in the longer term, there's a lot of money to be made by people who learn how to create alter- natives. This is definitely an area of prac- tice that is here to stay." www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2008 43