Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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is more diffused, with concentrated markets in Ontario and Quebec. "The oil industry is a cyclical indus- try, and this one was accompanied by an economic cycle," says Brinley. "Since I've been here, it's been pretty much constant change." The first big change occurred when Royal Dutch Shell took over Shell Canada in 2007. Prior to 2007, Royal Dutch Shell was a 78-per-cent shareholder of Shell Canada, but Shell Canada was a publicly traded com- pany and its shares were traded on people cope, and everybody deals with that differently," Brinley says. "Change management is one of those often- used terms, but it's a big part of being a leader, and it's certainly been a major component of my time here." Brinley, who attended the United States Air Force Academy, spent much of his life overseas, particularly in Asia, where he was intrigued by the dif- ferent societal and legal rules people lived by. That led to an interest in law, so while he was living in Japan teach- ing for the Ministry of Education, The oil industry is a cyclical industry, and this one was accompanied by an economic cycle. Since I've been here, it's been pretty much constant change. DAVID BRINLEY, Shell Canada Ltd. 60-SECOND SNAPSHOT THE LAWYER: David Brinley THE COMPANY: Shell Canada Ltd. Education: The U.S. Air Force Academy and Brigham Young Law School in Utah. Called to the bar in California 1991. Is writing a historical novel that relates to his interest in Asia. He's working on the project with his son, who wants to be an editor one day. Fluent in Japanese. Shell has 35 lawyers and 18 support staff, two lawyers in Toronto, one lawyer in Montreal, and 32 lawyers in Calgary. There are five associate general counsels. the Toronto Stock Exchange. Because minority shareholder rights are strong in Canada, Shell Canada ran fairly independently of its parent compa- ny, Royal Dutch Shell. In 2007, Royal Dutch Shell acquired the remaining 22 per cent of shares from Shell Canada. It no longer runs independently of the parent organization and there are no more minority shareholders. "That's still a new world for the people here in Canada," Brinley says. "All the Shell processes and standards are fully integrated, whereas before we adopted many of them but there was still quite a measure of independence." This change was followed up by the economic downturn, which resulted in belt-tightening measures and, most recently, a restructuring of some of the global Shell businesses. "Managing an organization through change has a lot of components, such as helping he applied for law school at Brigham Young University in Utah. During law school he had a sum- mer clerkship split between clerking in-house with Shell in Houston and clerking for Nixon Hargrave Devans & Doyle LLP, now Nixon Peabody LLP, a large New York law firm. He clerked with the firm to see if he was interested in large-scale law firm work. He wasn't. "I always felt that in-house was where I wanted to go, and that summer con- firmed things for me." He liked working with a single cli- ent and being involved in business decisions from day one, as opposed to generating clients and billable hours. Brinley was hired by Shell right out of school, and although he's parented and paid out of Houston, he's never worked there, aside from that half- summer clerkship. He started out in a satellite office in Bakersfield, Calif., Shell Canada works with outside counsel from Bennett Jones LLP, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, and Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP. with hopes of one day doing interna- tional work. At the time Shell kept its U.S. operations separate from global operations. One day, as a joke, he sent a settlement request form writ- ten out in Japanese to his boss' boss in Houston. A few months later, Shell was looking for a Japanese speaker, and Brinley ended up in London to get some international experience and then on to Japan. "I had an unusual spring out of the U.S. that you certainly wouldn't have had three years into Shell normally. And I've been interna- tional ever since." This is the first time his kids have lived in North America, since he's spent INHOUSE OCTOBER 2009 • 43