How do the two Ottawa offices differ?

For our internal structure, no. We try to have an as integrated approach as possible but for external purposes, we really do have a particular focus in Kanata, which is technology. . . .That was the impetus for locating the office there as well, it’s the hub of technology in the area. By having an office there we felt we were closer to the people we needed to be close to and try to build up our technology practice.

What’s the main focus of the Ottawa office?

Even downtown, the interesting thing about law these days is that geography is less and less relevant. I guess to some degree it seems a little counterintuitive that we put an office geographically proximate to the technology businesses but for some reason, I think the research we did in terms of Kanata was telling us that people did care, that it did make a difference to the technology people, that they have services providers, and lawyers and people were part of that local community. . . . We have practices that really vary.

There are people who have local practices, there are people who have national practices, and we even have international practices here. I think historically some of the things in the area that we work in — for example, we have a very strong presence in intellectual property — that practice developed because a lot of that law was focused federally. So being located in Ottawa with the Federal Court, with the various IP bodies for the government being located here, there was a natural development of that practice.

Another area that we’ve always had a strong presence in is the Supreme Court of Canada, again because the Supreme Court is here. In the old days, people would actually even rely on people at Gowlings to argue Supreme Court of Canada cases for them.

Now, because it’s easier to travel and the flow of information and documentation has been made much easier, we still have a role to play, but people will often travel from another jurisdiction to come and argue their own case. In the past, they relied on us to do a lot more with the court. It’s really difficult to try to break it down. There’s a real mix of local, national, and international practices.

On a national level, you’ll see a lot more co-ordination and co-operation between offices on an industry level. So we’ve got a financial services industry group that focuses on banking and lending and the type of work you’ll get out of financial services. And an energy and infrastructure group that’s very busy these days. They’re actually branching out internationally now.

We’ve got a life sciences group. We’ve got a technology group. There is a government relations group. These are more natural organizational groupings for what our clients want and need. That’s the common thread that you’ll see running through the offices. If you talked to anybody at any of the Gowlings offices, you’d tend not to see any radical differences in the way they’re organized internally. . . . more and more the focus of the firm is on the external relationships and that’s where we’re building ties from one office to another.

Tell me a bit about how you got involved in management in your firm.

I’m one of those people who’s always been involved in committees and activities. Even as an associate, I was on our marketing committee and got involved in a lot of things. I think there are just some people who naturally gravitate toward that type of activity; either running a project or different aspects of the firm. Then as a junior partner I was involved in more serious committees. I got onto our compensation committee for a time and then prior to becoming the office managing partner, I did four years as the business law department head. It’s been a steady progression for me. So ever since I was an associate, I’ve been involved in firm management and firm activities, slowly working my up to this position.

How has the legal landscape changed in Ottawa over the last 20 years?

I think I’d have to say that it’s the concept that the whole world in shrinking. Local practice mattered a lot more. Now because of technological advancements, now because of the ability to move information around very easily from one place to another, because of the trend for a lot of businesses to try and consolidate head offices or certain actions in certain places, the local presence is not as important.

So for people to try to survive from a work perspective, I think everyone needs to look a little further afield. You can’t simply think that if you hang out a shingle on Elgin Street in Ottawa that you’re going to have a whole range of work that’s going to be open to you.

There’s work that’s going to be available, but if you want to do different types of work, you’ll have to look somewhere else other than downtown. Banking is an example. The banks, to a large extent, they’ve commoditized a lot of the work they do . . . previously the local banks or branches would have had a lot more autonomy on how they could direct the work or larger transactions would have been handed out or dealt with by local people. That’s not so much the case anymore.

Often, they’re divided differently internally, so the larger work or different types of work may be allocated by somebody sitting in Mississauga or Burlington. So a local relationship isn’t necessarily what it was 15 or 20 years ago.

Also, I think, with varying degrees of success, the difference in Ottawa is that we clearly do have the national firms. Gowlings, to a large extent, a lot of [us] like to feel that there’s been a Gowlings and Henderson in Ottawa and the firm has very strong roots in terms of its growth.

The original Gowling and Henderson firm started back in the 1880s in Ottawa. So we have a very strong presence here. To a degree, I think a lot of people feel there has been increasing competition from national firms that have either set up offices — again because of technology there are law firms that are in different parts of the country who do work in Ottawa but have not even set up a presence here — they’ll do a transaction or be involved in some matter but the physical location is not as important as the client relationship.

I think geography matters less than it did 15 years ago. Just being here isn’t enough. You’ve got to have contacts, relationships, and you’ve got to look and work very hard at making sure that your relationships allow you to do the work that might have some tie to this locale.