Canadian Lawyer InHouse

7 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE SEPTEMBER 2016 News Roundup A roundup of legal department news and trends Johnson takes on GC role at TCHC N o stranger to controversial jobs in government, Mark Johnson is taking on the role of general counsel at the embattled Toronto Commu- nity Housing Corp. "I'm quite excited about it and looking forward to it," says Johnson, who started in the job June 20. A report issued in January by the TCHC task force appointed by Toronto Mayor John Tory listed 29 recommenda- tions to address the crisis facing the organization, which has a $2.6-billion repair backlog and ongoing turmoil at its headquarters. Johnson says he has a certain appetite for taking on tough jobs in the public sector — he served as interim general counsel at eHealth Ontario in 2009, and led its legal team during a diffi cult time of restructuring. "I like the action," he says with a chuckle. "People have commented on that and I just say from a lawyer's perspective and being part of the turnaround operation it's interesting. Would you rather be sitting around bored? No, that's why I like this challenge." The legal team at TCHC consists of about nine lawyers as well as procurement and insurance/risk management personnel who report up to him. The entire team is about 50 people. Johnson has a range of expertise in corporate law and has provided services to startups as well as large corporations such as Deutsche Bank, IBM, Nike and Visa. For the last fi ve years he has been general counsel at the global software consulting company Infusion, where he worked on commercial transactions, governance, employment, intellectual property and regulatory matters. Johnson says he was looking for a new challenge when he saw the position and was drawn back to the public sector by the idea of working at TCHC. "I have a strong community service bent to me and the challenges in the organization appealed to me. I liked the public service component to it. Once you are bitten by working in the public sector, you do want to go back," he says. "The work the organization is doing is extremely important to the city." His fi rst goals are to educate himself about the inner workings of the organization and some of the challenges it faces. "Legal's priorities are set by the other departments and naturally we'll have some department-building initiatives, but most of what we do is client- serving work," he says. "I'll be out in the weeks ahead fi guring out how we can better serve our clients and ultimately serve the residents better." Johnson says that may include assisting in the procurement of mainte- nance services or forming strategic partnerships with other community organizations and companies. "The work the team does here is quite fascinating; everything from huge multi-billion-dollar development projects to landlord-and-tenant matters and everything in between," he says. He will have a dual reporting relationship to the board of directors and to the president and CEO of TCHC. Johnson is also the founder of a line of men's clothing called Kovalum. IH McMillan LLP partners with IBM for pricing platform M cMillan LLP has announced a plan to work with IBM on new software that will improve accu- racy of price models for legal work. The initiative by the law fi rm and the technology com- pany will involve the work of a data scientist who will sift through the fi rm's internal data to spot legal patterns and trends, as well as boost certainty around pricing. Tim Murphy, executive partner at McMillan LLP, says the project is focused "on using analytics to provide predic- tive value," and moving away from anecdote. "One of the big problems law fi rms have is that every law- yer is an independent pricer and manager of legal services," says Murphy. "What we're trying to do is bring the skillset of all of them up, by virtue of providing them with reliable, objective data, not just their anecdotal personal experience as a basis for pricing, staffi ng and that communication with a client." A news release announcing the project said: "powered by IBM's comprehensive predictive analytics system, SPSS, and running on IBM Cloud, the platform offers advanced algorithms and techniques that aggregate, analyze and in- terpret McMillan's internal data to strengthen the decision making process." Internal data that will be used includes billing information, or time spent by lawyers on a fi le (tracked by areas such as cli- ent, matter, lawyer, partner, associate, value, time or offi ce). There could be further analysis on the number of docu- ments created, how many drafts were done and how many people participated in the process. "All of that is buried in the technology we already have; what that reveals is what this [data scientist] is skilled in," says Murphy. For example, Murphy says a sample could be taken of an area of law where services are provided on a regular basis, such as the purchase and sale of a business. Lawyers may act for the seller or the buyer or one of the bidders, he says. In the new initiative, the data scientist will use predictive software to analyze past deals the fi rm has participated in to "produce a set of learnings to have a richer conversation" with clients, says Murphy. He says it will also assist the fi rm in fi guring out how to staff particular fi les. Part of the drive will be to connect with in-house counsel, says Murphy. "If we're going to be an innovative supplier of legal services, our view is we're going to have to have a different kind of discussion and relationship with in- house counsel, because we know they're looking for better- informed external counsel who can provide value to them," says Murphy. IH

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