Martin Denyes, the new firm managing partner at Fasken, offers advice on leadership

Canadian Lawyer spoke with Martin Denyes, recently elected firm managing partner of Fasken. Fasken is the Lexpert Rising Stars Event Partner, honouring leading lawyers under 40.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about your practice.

I practised as a labour and employment lawyer. I did a lot of collective bargaining and arbitration work, helping employers with their workplace challenges and strategies. I've been in a management role for 13 years as the managing partner of the Ontario region, so it's been a while since I was in full-time practice.

What are your current responsibilities as Ontario managing partner?

I am responsible for leading the Toronto and the Ottawa offices and ensuring they're in sync with the overall firm strategy. On the recruiting side, I build up our associate and partner base.

Your tenure as firm managing partner begins January 1, 2024. What will be your priorities?

My goal is to continue to build on our strengths. We've had a lot of achievements and changes in the last decade. We have been recognized with several awards.

We've become a firm that adapts well to change. We may be the biggest in the country, but we still have a very adaptable brand. Change is core to our business plan. We need to be out there identifying where the big opportunities are for clients. One of the significant opportunities and challenges now is artificial intelligence. Clients are coming up with exciting products, and we are looking at those. The energy grids need to triple or quadruple over the next 20 years, and there is infrastructure that goes along with that.

What are the ingredients for ensuring that a large organization like Fasken can continue to change?

Part of it is listening to your people. They see the changes coming. There's been a lot of consistency between our challenges as a law firm and what our clients face. That was very evident at the beginning of the pandemic, and we had to adapt the same way they did, including how we engage our workforce.

How is Fasken adopting some of these new technologies?

We've got a few in the works. It's still early days. We are trying to use artificial intelligence to ensure that we're pulling the best materials from our database and looking at how we use it for our structured and unstructured data. But we're also being careful about being on the bleeding edge.

How do you plan to promote diversity and inclusivity?

All firms have been making increased efforts over the last few years. We hired our chief equity, diversity and inclusion officer, Sandeep Tatla, two years ago. She's become integrated into our business. We are moving from good ideas to measurement, which is critical.

Regarding programs, we have our responsible business program, including our pillars of EDI, climate action, Indigenous reconciliation and pro bono. We are now certified Mansfield 6.0 Certification Plus, which means we're not just aiming to have 30 percent of our appointments from underrepresented lawyers, but we're also achieving that. We are on a path toward reconciliation. It's been wonderful to have Perry Bellegarde join us, and we have our new office on Tsuut’ina lands near Calgary.

We are doing a lot of work with organizations like ICON Talent Partners for incoming Black and Indigenous students attending Canadian law schools. Black Boys Code is interesting; we want to ensure we give back in the early days rather than just at the law school level. This puts computers on desks and gives children training, and that's important to us.

And in our hiring, we are members of the Black North Initiative. We have been meeting our objectives there and intend to continue to do so.

Tell me about your new office on Tsuut’ina lands.

This office is the brainchild of lawyers in our Calgary office. The objective is to foster relationships and new connections with Indigenous peoples. We approached the opening of this office in a consultative manner and through ceremony. You need to spend time on relationships and not simply be transactional.

How do you plan to foster collaboration among lawyers and staff?

The objective on the people front is to have people talking and communicating.

One of the best parts of preparing for this role is that I've been able to visit all our offices. If you hang around long enough, you get into a story that has nothing to do with the reason you're there, and that's where relationships and trust build.

What are the biggest challenges you foresee in your new role?

We face the same ones as our clients. This is a complicated world. We need to find talent wherever it is, and then we need people to join and be part of our organization.

Clients are facing the daunting challenge of the expense of technology, what it can do and how it may change how they work. They face cybersecurity and privacy issues like us.

We are also figuring out how we use our offices. Transit is challenging these days. More people are back downtown. Making these offices attractive places for people will be challenging for the next five years.

Can you highlight any specific practice areas or industry sectors that Fasken aims to expand or strengthen under your leadership?

We are watching for economic changes, but you can count on us to look for growth opportunities in the energy and emerging tech spaces. We have an incredible mining group known as the world's top mining group. Mining and energy are converging in a new way.

We are a leader in M&A and have been handling some of the top litigation files in the country.

Do you have upcoming pro bono initiatives or community partnerships?

We have had a long-term relationship with the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees. We do a lot of work supporting law students nationwide with scholarships and bursaries. The United Way campaigns are ramping up across the country. We are also doing work in Africa with the International Lawyers for Africa. We've done a lot of work with Hackergal, which helps put computers on desks and give training, assisting girls to get into computer science.

Is Fasken planning to open any new offices?

We will be focused on practices and industries. We have lawyers worldwide, particularly when we're so connected to the mining industry. But the primary focus will be on where the industry opportunities are. Our conversations are not about new locations; they are about the practices.

What advice would you give young lawyers?

It is the same advice I have always given. Stay connected. For young lawyers, it is easy to do this through technology. Don't forget your friends. As you build up a network of contacts over the years, develop an expertise, a specialization, and lean into growth opportunities.

I mentioned emerging tech and energy because I'm a managing partner trying to help our law firm grow. Young lawyers should be doing likewise with their careers, looking for big opportunities throughout the next 10, 15, 20 years.

What advice would you offer to lawyers aspiring to reach a leadership position like yours?

Don't start with the aspiration of being a managing partner. Start with the ambition of being a trusted advisor to your clients and colleagues. If you are someone who can help with challenges and take responsibility, it gets noticed.

Be there for people when nobody's looking and it doesn't matter, and for sure be there when the chips are down and it does matter. Earn the trust of your colleagues, get some great experiences, and take a few chances.

Whatever you do, don't sit in your basement and wait for the world to come to you. This is critical. If you want a leadership role, then take those small opportunities and lean into them. It's about helping an organization drive forward.