Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m A P R I L 2 0 1 6 35 Calgary city report sidewalks quieter, downtown restaurants are closing, and rush hour is not quite as busy. Residential real estate has gone very, very cold. Even Calgary's taxi industry had a million fewer riders last year, and prime downtown parking, once the second most expensive in North America after New York (a sort of weird boasting point during boom times), has become a comparative bargain. That is what the province-wide loss of tens of thousands of jobs has done to this city. And among those losing their jobs are lawyers. The epicentre of the layoffs is, of course, the oil and gas sector, where everyone is getting hit from janitors to geologists to corporate counsel. "We don't have exact numbers," says Kate Ryder, an in-house lawyer in Calgary with a major energy company. She is also chair of the Southern Alberta branch of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association. "We are certainly see- ing an increased number of members who are seeking work and are not currently employed," says Ryder. "There is a lot of uncertainty out there and a very limited number of jobs" and she is seeing more corporate counsel accept contract or short- term positions. "These are people who wouldn't normally take that kind of work." Some in-house lawyers are looking to move elsewhere, but that is an extraordi- narily unattractive strategy for anyone own- ing real estate. With Calgary's soft housing market, selling now would almost certainly result in a loss, potentially a substantial loss, for anyone who bought property in the last decade. "The timing is terrible," says Ryan. Nevertheless, some former in-house law- yers are taking a deep breath and moving out of the province. In spite of the savaging of the energy industry's corporate counsel in Calgary and Alberta, the CCCA still held its national conference in Calgary earlier his month. "You might call it a vote of confidence for those who are out of work., says Ryder. "We will recover." "Lawyers work in a sea of money" is the colourful way John Brussa, vice chairman of law firm Burnet Duckworth & Palmer explains the law business. "Law firms are reacting to the fact there is less money in the system." As a result, he says legal work surrounding mergers and acquisitions and financing is down, while insolvency work is "probably a growth business." As he pain- fully points out, "with $30 oil there are lots of defaults. In Brussa's estimation, regulato- ry work is the least affected. However, when the ups are balanced against the downs, "the law business is down," he says. The veteran corporate law leader has had some emotional meetings in his clut- tered corner office with clients as well as some younger lawyers in his firm. "People are afraid," he says. "I've spent a bit of time keeping spirits up, telling people not to panic." He points out he has been through the downturns of the '80s and '90s when a lot of dreams for a lot of people died. "It's hard to see the sun at the bottom of the well," he says philosophically, "but I can see the sun." At Dentons, Lougheed recalls going though some steep downturns when he was a young lawyer. "If you want to stick to the Calgary analogies," he says, "this is not my first rodeo." He agrees with Brussa that in any firm with a diverse client list there are going to be winners and losers. "Sadly, insolvency becomes more active." But he points out things are not all bad. For ranching, agribusiness, and tourism, "there are some benefits to the low dollar; the sky is not falling." At Alberta-based Field Law, managing partner Jim Casey says, "We are bracing for a very challenging 2016," but his firm is also seeing opportunities. One is the avail- ability of significantly discounted rental office space. As a consequence, Field is moving its Calgary operations to a new downtown location this fall. In Casey's view, "this downturn is the worst I will have seen in 30 years of practice." But the firm can trace its roots back 100 years in Alberta, and Casey says it is confident enough to take a counter-cyclical approach and has not cut either lawyers or support staff. "One of the greatest challenges of law firm leadership is thinking of the big picture. The recovery will come." Jay Park, of Calgary-based Park Ener- gy Law, spends a fair amount of time in London, England because his oil-and-gas- based practice has a global reach. Park has been an Alberta lawyer for 35 years and has lived through four major oil downturns. Canadian Lawyer found him in his London office. He is philosophical. He points out that energy law firms tend to be driven by transactions and disputes. He says there has been an uptick in disputes because in hard times "people tend to be more intransigent." But Park says, "We have not yet seen the divestment and acquisitions activity com- mon in prior downturns." However, he believes "there is a pent-up demand" for that to start happening as soon as people are confident the price of oil has bottomed out. Such a scenario, of course, would be good for law firms in the energy sector such as Park's and he is confident there is more transaction work on the horizon. "Buyers with assets would like to buy oil and gas properties at a low price, but there are not yet sellers ready to enter into transactions on those terms." He thinks that may start happening later this year. He bases his pre- diction on the old line: "The cure for low prices is low prices." Those low prices are having an impact beyond just the corporate towers. Wayne Barkauskas is a Calgary family lawyer with Wise Scheible Barkauskas as well as being president of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Bar Association. He says while the business of family law "remains almost recession-proof," billing has become an issue with more clients facing cash-flow issues. And that, he says, is a problem, "especially for young family law lawyers. They have fewer resources to withstand that kind of thing." Money problems are everyone's prob- lems, notes Barkauskas. As an illustration, he points to a shift in the root cause for many of the marital problems his clients are dealing with. "When times are good and people break up, they usually fight about money. When times are bad, people break up and fight about whose fault it is they don't have enough money." In the Calgary law business as a whole, Barkauskas is not aware of any specific job loss numbers, but "anecdotally, lawyers are losing their jobs as much as anyone else." He says "the people being affected the most dramatically are young lawyers, they're always the first to be let go, and, of course, students seeking articles." His firm has been contacted by a huge number of law stu- dents. "It's never been like this before, not even close." He says unless someone really

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