Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50884
but the CFL move comes aſter develop- ments at the university level, which feeds the professional teams. A few members of the University of Waterloo's football team, the Waterloo Warriors, recently tested positive for banned substances including human growth hormone and steroids. The test results marked the most significant doping scandal in Can- adian university history. The university decided to take a hard line and set an ex- ample, suspending its football program for an entire season. As part of its program, the CFL has announced it will identify the top 80 Canadian university football prospects and provide funding for those athletes to be tested during the year. A changing industry The four-lawyer in-house team at MLSE keeps busy most days, and as in-house lawyers in the sports industry, they face different pressures from those of most of their colleagues in other businesses. "You know, there aren't too many people who will wake up Monday morning and think they know more about how [General Electric Co.] might have been run, but certainly a lot of people wake up on Monday morning and think that they might have craſted a play differ- ently," says Brudner. "I love that part of it as well. It's certainly something that we are very mindful about. We know that people are very passionate, thankfully, about our teams, and we have to respect that and value that but part of that comes with more criticism than with other companies." The industry has changed, as has how in-house counsel work inside it, says Brudner. "When I started 15 years ago at the Raptors, we attended some team lawyer meetings at the NBA and there were, I would say, a third to half of the teams were represented by outside coun- sel who did their work. This has certainly changed. Now 100 per cent of the teams, I would venture to guess, have inside counsel, at least one. Because the busi- ness has become so much more involv- ing, that's . . . how much more compli- cated the practice of law in our business has become," she says. And the economy is not the only vari- able for Canada's sports business. Toron- to and some other parts of the country are changing mainly through immigra- tion. While hockey remains Canada's first sport, many new immigrants don't know much about it, so bringing them into the fold is a priority for companies like MLSE. However, they are diversify- ing with the opening of the Toronto FC soccer franchise, which although new has been embraced by the city's global population. "Toronto FC has done great, we have no worries there," says Brudner. In the end, although unique, com- panies in the sports industry face many of the challenges seen by businesses any- where during the recession. "It's a unique business, but at the end of the day it is still a business," says Brudner. IH e-discovery readiness retention policy litigation hold meet & confer document review forensic data collection deduplication electronic courtroom technologies training conferences trial processing preservation keyword search protocol witness examination e-filing security policies costs reduction anton piller e-evidence information management governance risk compliance litigation preparedness www.ledjit.com Proactively Manage your Informational Risks Your company creates, receives and saves an ever increasing amount of information in various formats and media. Without a effective information management framework, this information is often difficult to find or inaccessible causing significant loss of productivity, delays, increased costs and unmanageable risks. Ledjit has the expertise and knowledge to assess your needs and help you mitigate the risks and costs of information overload. Information Management and Litigation Readiness Assessments Ledjit Consulting Inc. T 514 212-9348 F 866 606-6590 info@ledjit.com www.ledjit.com E-Discovery Be litigation ready and get all the information you need! Information Management "Information is power", if it is well managed! Law and Information Technologies A team of lawyers and IT specialists. Untitled-1 1 INHOUSE OCTOBER 2010 • 8/27/10 1:25:43 PM 35