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 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7 39 tainty," says Casey. "Then they can order their affairs." He says Field Law has increased its rigour when it comes to defining the scope of a project and to collecting and analyzing historical data on costs. This gives the firm the ability to prepare a fixed-price proposal. "We're not going back to the old days, nor should we," he says. "Lawyers have long thought we didn't need to use some of these standard business processes, but clients should demand them of us. If it's a boom year next year, that desire for certainty is not going to change, and it shouldn't." Enzo Barichello, managing partner of Bennett Jones's Edmonton office and co-leader of its government affairs and public policy practice, says another grow- ing demand from clients centres on the need for cyber-security. The complexity of attacks on corporations is increasing, as is their frequency. "Sophisticated clients will not deal with a service provider that cannot guarantee the security of their data," he says. "They may have a very robust system, but if the bad guys are going to back-door them through somebody else, there's a problem." Barichello says Bennett Jones has spent a lot of time and money to achieve compli- ance with the ISO 27000 series of informa- tion security management standards. The Edmonton economy is projected to continue with steady growth in the near term, with The Conference Board of Can- ada predicting growth of 2.4 per cent in 2017 and 2.2 per cent in 2018. Capital that has been sitting on the sidelines is begin- ning to be deployed, merger and acquisi- tion activity is picking up and oil and gas producers have learned that they can make money at much lower prices than they expected. But Barichello says structural change is coming and that practitioners in the city had best prepare for it. He says the low-carbon economy is here to stay, and Alberta had better get ready for it. "There was a time we thought it was climate change messaging [that] was stri- dent and marginal," he says. "The reality is that this is an actual reset at a global level of our relationship with carbon and carbon-based fuel." Alberta itself has been leading the way in setting a price on carbon, with an economy-wide carbon tax, a cap on carbon production from the oilsands and plans to wean the provincial electric grid off of coal in the next couple of decades. But that still leaves the economy tied to fossil fuels. "We've been talking about the need for diversification going back to the days of the National Energy Program, but nobody really believed it," Barichello says. "Much like the weather, it was just a matter of stopping and waiting for a little bit and the next upturn is going to come. But carbon pricing is different. It's structural. For the first time ever, capital wants to be deployed in the oil and gas business, but a lot of it is looking to lower carbon alternatives." Barichello would like to see the private sector, government and tertiary education institutions come together to address the issue. "We have strong post-secondary with massive amounts of creativity and research," he says. "We need to commer- cialize that activity." But that doesn't change the fact that Barichello no longer worries, as he did just five years ago, of a brain drain of Edmon- ton's youth, when young people would head down the road to Calgary, Toronto or beyond. "The reality is there is more and more reason to be here, for business, for community, for sport," he says. "This is a community that is a lovely place to earn a living and to raise a family." And it's a great place to practise law. Merrick says the legal community is close, respectful and fair. "There is a col- legiality and trust between lawyers that I don't think you see in other cities of similar size," he says. Now, if only the Oilers can use their new arena as a springboard to win the Stanley Cup again. by the numbers Edmonton 13,344 – Number of lawyers holding membership in the Law Society of Alberta 9,165 – Number of active lawyers in the province 3,015 – Number of active lawyers in Edmonton 40 – Percentage of active lawyers in Edmonton who are female 256 – Number of inactive/retired lawyers in Edmonton 18 – Percentage of inactive/retired lawyers in Edmonton who are female 31 – Percentage of active lawyers in Edmonton who work in-house for business or government 2,060 – Number of lawyers in Edmonton who work in private firms 18 – Percentage who are sole practitioners 32 – Percentage who work in firms of 2-10 lawyers 15 – Percentage who work in firms of 11-25 lawyers 35 – Percentage who work in firms of more than 25 lawyers 1.3 million – Population of Edmonton census metropolitan area, making it the sixth largest CMA in Canada 2.4% – Projected growth rate, 201 7 2.2% – Projected growth rate, 2018 8 years – Term of Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid's contract 8 years – Term of Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl's contract Sources: Law Society of Alberta, Conference Board of Canada

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