Canadian Lawyer

"The fish business was a pretty tough way to make a living. You get tired of beating your head against the wall building factories and then closing factories, and hiring people and firing them. It drains you after a while." lawyers. He was at Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson LLP. I remember thinking, 'These lawyers are so smart.' I didn't real- ize, quite by happenstance, that my first exposure to real lawyers was probably the smartest lawyer in Canada. Most lawyers don't start their career carrying the bag for Marshall Rothstein, but I did. several fish factories in the Maritimes. "The fish business was a pretty tough way to make a living, O'Brien then found himself managing " tired of beating your head against the wall building factories and then closing facto- ries, and hiring people and firing them. It drains you after a while. So I went to McCain — it was a continuously solvent employer, so I stayed, " he says. "You get finance department was gradual; he was drawn to where he was needed most. "I just found myself doing more corporate finance work and it came to a point where I was sending most of my work outside. I said, 'We have to hire someone in finance to do this work or get someone in the legal department to do it.' And so I con- tinued the migration into finance. The migration from legal " he says. to the five years, the past three in Geneva. These days his work has nothing to do with law — it involves issues around cross- currency interest rates and other complex financial matters. "I'm in the midst of doing some transactions I've never done in my life — learning like mad — and O'Brien has now been in Europe for " that's pretty neat to be 62 and coming to " the office and having a learning curve at least as steep as it was 40 years ago. O'Brien is being humble. "Risk manage- ment is a big issue for corporate counsel and when it comes to financial risk man- agement, David is one of the best," says John Stefaniuk of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP in Winnipeg. Stefaniuk knows O'Brien from his long involve- ment with the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association and the Canadian Bar Association. "On top of his day job, David has been very generous in shar- ing his financial risk management and investment management expertise as a volunteer with the CBA, CBA Financial Service Corp., and other organizations," says Stefaniuk. "He is greatly respected for his insight, experience, and sound judgment." When O'Brien took on the pension But those who know him suggest portfolio at McCain in 2003, it happened because the function really had no other owner at the time. "It was a lot of work to get it cleaned up. I think we had 10 plans around the world then — we had a plan for eight or nine people in Sweden and none for 1,500 employees in France. So there was a process of learning the job, then you get handed risk management." Over the years, O'Brien has never had gone another route. "Back when I was in Grand Falls looking after the factories I was regretting a little that I had gone down the road I had. I was at Rotary Club talk- ing to another lawyer about an upcoming UNB law school reunion. I wasn't feeling very proud of what I had done throughout my career and envious of what I perceived was the careers of people I would be meet- ing after 20 years. This lawyer said to me: 'You will be struck by how envious people are of you. who had that grass-is-greener attitude. "There are just different roads; not better or worse. They had been doing deeds and wills and motor vehicle accidents for 20 years and didn't find their jobs all that ful- filling. The path I took was different. You might ask why would a lawyer wind up running a fish plant? The fact is most law- yers could — if you look at the skill set — lawyers have tremendous versatility. They may not choose to do things other than be lawyers but they have the capability — lawyers are tremendous problem solvers. Running factories or running a treasury is about dealing with the issues that aren't much different than being a litigator. At this stage of his career O'Brien O'Brien realized he wasn't the only one ' That really floored me." " regretted leaving private practice. Occasionally, though, he has thought about what it would have been like if he says he's happy with what has been a less than conventional career path. "I'm coming up on 40 years of call. I'm 62 and there's so much of my job I don't know how to do yet and I'm just learn- ing on the fly. " Untitled-3 1 www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com OCTO BER 2012 21 12-08-07 9:24 AM

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