Canadian Lawyer InHouse

NOVEMBER 2016 28 INHOUSE RANKED C A N A D I A N L AW Y E R M A G A Z I N E Y E Y R www.sherrardkuzz.com | 416.603.0700 | 24 Hour 416.420.0738 250 Yonge St #3300, Toronto, ON M5B 2L7 | @SherrardKuzz We never call it a day. Workplace issues never sleep. That's why our 24 hour line is answered by a Sherrard Kuzz lawyer every hour of every day, even on holidays. Whatever the issue. Whatever the time. Our 24 hour line means our clients sleep well at night even if we sometimes don't. If it's about your workplace, we're the only call you need to make. Untitled-3 1 2016-10-04 2:55 PM veloped fantastic skills in the area but have chosen to leave large fi rms and set up shop on their own and provide good service at reasonable rates." Ferenbok says if you're looking for a spe- cialist in an area of law such as employment and regulatory issues then boutiques work well. "If you're doing large corporate trans- actions, it's still useful to use the larger, more expensive but well-resourced fi rms." Even large companies have found the value of seeking advice from smaller, spe- cialized entities. Loreto Grimaldi, former general coun- sel with Progressive Waste Solutions, had a budget of between $3 million and $4 mil- lion in Canada and about $7 million in the U.S. but a small legal department — fi ve lawyers in the entire company. "You'd think a big company would be using a large, full-service fi rm, but, in fact, when I started I saw what we were being billed for stuff by the big Bay Street fi rms and we decided to think outside the box," he says. "There were three or four fi rms we used for stuff where big fi rms just don't have the kind of nimble employment law practice where you can just phone someone up and say 'for $2,000 a month I want this much time avail- able a month to call and kick stuff around.'" Grimaldi says even though big fi rms promised they could provide fee arrange- ments there was still the "big fi rm mentality. "We were looking for people who would think more like a GC would think, which is let me solve the business problem with a creative legal solution versus a standard white-shoe answer, which is there are three ways to do it and it doesn't look like you're going to be able to do what you're planning on doing," he says. So Grimaldi and his team looked for cre- ativity and entrepreneurial billing and found it in the labour and employment space with a boutique fi rm on a block-fee arrangement. "We were trying to update a lot of old pa- perwork around things like harassment po- lices. They knew how big we were and how complex our business was and I don't think the quality of advice took a hit," he says. "In a niche market, I don't think it mat- ters how big or small your legal department is — it's systemic in the market that the big fi rms can't be all things to all people. The right ones are going to refer you and the wrong ones are going to claim they are all things to all people." IH had to use a Bay Street fi rm for that area." Gennady Ferenbok, general manager, Canada and general counsel of the World Fishing Network, says ever since he moved in-house he has developed a good relation- ship with employment boutique fi rms. "You fi nd they have lawyers who are very skilled who charge slightly more reasonable rates but provide high-quality, fantastic ser- vice," he says. "Employment law is a specialized area and there are a lot of experts who have de- full-service fi rms," she says. "I started in a full-service fi rm and you're able to lever- age all the different practice areas, but with [boutiques], if you have a particular issue and you need a focused response, it's a good way to go." The company also used a boutique in Ot- tawa for trademark issues; however, Gill did discover that the fi rm didn't cover patent is- sues. "Sometimes, you think a boutique will cover all your issues, but I was surprised they didn't — patent work wasn't covered so we Canada's Top boutiques & Largest full-service Prairie firms

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