Another small boutique with a high profile is Ball & Alexander in Toronto. They are limited not just by their philosophy but by their location in a red brick house in the tony Yorkville area inspired by law firm headquarters in Montreal and Victoria. “Our overhead costs are fixed and indeed shrinking because we own the building,”
says Stacey Ball. The part of the house that is not taken up by Ball and his partner Ken Alexander accommodates other labour lawyers who can be called on to boost the ranks when a complex matter requires it.

Ball & Alexander is one of the rare firms that represents both employers and employees, among them law firms and individual lawyers. “To be a good lawyer and a good litigator, you have to have a sense of empathy,” says Ball. “By that I mean understanding how the other side views things so you can anticipate what they will do. It makes you a better chess player.”

On the labour law side, which involves trade union work, it is extremely unusual to move between the management and employee side of the table. “It would be a very rare labour lawyer who would be acceptable to both sides,” says Harris. “It’s not like criminal law, where the client meets the lawyer on one occasion and doesn’t represent who he or she represents afterwards. We represent the client regularly over a period of time.”

Pink puts it more bluntly. “You can’t be beating up on trade unions one day and representing them the next. It doesn’t go with the culture.”

Andrew Tremayne, the managing partner at Emond Harnden, talks about the problem of setting a precedent on the employee side that comes back to haunt your management clients, and vice versa. “We want to give expert advice, not on the basis that you do your best today, but when you close the file all bets are off. It is a very relationship-driven business, as opposed to transactional.”

Apart from choosing the side they will represent, L & E boutiques like to distinguish themselves from their competition in other ways. Ball and Alexander point to their publishing history (Ball is the author of Canadian Employment Law) and the important cases they were involved during their early years, such as the Wallace v. United Grain Growers decision. Emond Harnden thinks its bilingual abilities put it in a place of its own and is also very proud of its full-time research group. Hicks Morley highlights the advantages it gains from its branch offices in Kitchener, Ottawa, Kingston and London. “That was a client-driven initiative,” says Shamie. “There is a lot of pressure from clients to move into their geographic area so that we can meet face-to-face, be responsive and available. It also cuts down on the client paying for travel costs.”

All the lawyers interviewed agree that the most important aspect of their reputation is their focus on one area. MacPhail is confident that when the Roper Greyell Frisbee goes whizzing by, the name instantly conveys one meaning to all who read it: labour and employment law. On the other side of the country, L & E boutiques are milking the same cow. “It permeates the whole firm,” says Pink of their reputation for expert advice, “so when a junior goes in to a court or tribunal and says, ‘I’m from Pink Breen Larkin,’ they know he knows what he’s talking about.”

Even though the boutiques confine themselves to playing one tune, it does not mean that there is only one string in the bow. L & E is a specialty with many specialties within it, many fairly new and all rapidly changing. “If you look at labour law firms in Canada and the U.S., the underlying denominator is dealing with people in the workplace,” says Harris.

He points to Littler Mendelson, which, with over 500 labour lawyers, is the largest specialty firm in the U.S. “Certain lawyers call themselves traditional labour lawyers, administrative lawyers, human rights lawyers, or litigation avoidance lawyers. Our new and growing areas are business immigration, where clients are trying to attract people from other jurisdictions, and privacy law — a narrow specialty that has developed in only the last few years. The common theme is the new rights that employees have.”

Hicks Morley began practising exclusively in labour and employment, and later added education, workers safety and insurance, pay equity, occupational health and safety, human rights, and pension and benefits. With nine full-time lawyers in the pensions section, it is the fastest-growing area in the firm, along with employment litigation. Pink Breen Larkin has branched out even further. It considers environmental and municipal law to be complimentary areas, since it is already the representative for many advocacy groups.