Lawyer Bram Lecker's business is booming, and it's all thanks to layoffs.
His three-person office on level 15 of the Xerox Tower, at Yonge and Finch, is now crammed with five extra staff. His daily schedule is packed full of meetings, and he's seeing as many new clients each day as he used to see in a week.
"I feel like a mortician sometimes," said Mr. Lecker, an employment lawyer whose boutique firm in North York is now overrun with work.
"What was happening with real estate firms two or three years ago ... has really transferred onto us, and firms doing insolvency, unfortunately."
As any cynic will tell you: whether times are good or bad, one can always find a lawyer who is making money.
Employment law has leapt to the top of the heap. A national survey released this month by law firm Fasken Martineau showed that 40 per cent of companies with more than 50 employees were involved in litigation last year, most commonly for labour and employment, or contracts.
And the companies surveyed said labour and employment topped their lists of legal concerns for the year ahead.
For the lawyers and mediators who take both employers and their workers through the murky world of redundancies, the recent months have produced changes in the people and cases they see.
Mediator Barry Fisher isn't any busier than usual - his work diary has been full for years - but he has noticed surprising attitude changes.
Laid-off workers are becoming more pragmatic, he says. They've seen their workplaces change, they've felt the impact of the slowing economy, and they're more understanding of employers grappling with a battered bottom line.
Meanwhile, employers are becoming more emotional, and less willing to fork out any money at all.
"An emotional employer is more difficult to deal with than an emotional plaintiff," Mr. Fisher said.
"First of all, an emotional plaintiff at the end of the day has to listen to his lawyer. They can't afford to lose a case, generally. ... If I'm dealing with a director of human resources, it's not his money. And he's got all sorts of political issues to deal with."
The mediators in the middle don't have an easy job, Mr. Fisher said, and despite the influx of cases, he doesn't feel he's benefiting from society's misfortune.
"I'm not the one that starts the dispute, and when I mediate a resolution, I often feel good," he said. "I can understand lawyers feeling somewhat guilty about it, but as a mediator I am simply handed the cases."
But employment lawyers, too, see themselves as helpers, regardless of whether they're assisting a company to increase staff during good times, or cut costs during bad.
Business is up for Fasken Martineau partner Brian O'Byrne, who represents corporations in workplace disputes. But that doesn't mean the year ahead will be a breeze.
"It's sad to see so many people lose their jobs, and to have to come face to face with all of that," Mr. O'Byrne said. "I don't think any of us can feel particularly good when we're seeing so many people lose their jobs."
Back in Mr. Lecker's North York office, most of the newly-unemployed have been laid off from foreign-owned companies, many in very senior positions.
"It's extremely, extremely disheartening for them," Mr. Lecker said. "They come in with shellshock. ... They don't know what to do, they don't know how to cope, and I don't blame them because it was so unexpected."
Mr. Lecker admits he feels guilty sometimes about forging ahead as his clients buckle, but in the end a law firm is a business, he said. This year is likely to be a good one, if he can manage the burgeoning workload.
"You're leading people through a bad time, [so] there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That's the only way to cope with it," he said.
"And I don't have any friends that are lawyers, or we'd all be sitting there commiserating with each other."
The personal economy is a series that looks at people in the Toronto region coping with the economic downturn. To share your story, write Tenille Bonoguore at
