The corner of Bay Street and Adelaide streets in the heart of Toronto’s financial districGloria Nieto/The Globe and Mail
Two veterans of big-name Canadian law firms are moving to the Toronto offices of Detroit-based Dickinson Wright LLP, which is not a household legal name here but has been expanding its footprint in Canada.
McCarthy Tétrault LLP partner Brenda Swick, a litigator and an international trade and investment lawyer, has left McCarthys to join Dickinson Wright's Toronto office. And David Judson, a partner with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP who specializes in crossborder securities and corporate law, is also joining the U.S.-based firm.
They are just the latest in a series of lateral hires that began after Dickinson Wright took on Toronto's Aylesworth LLP in a 2011 merger. Since then, after losing some lawyers after the tie-up, the firm's Toronto outpost has added about 20 new lawyers. It plans to expand beyond its current 46 lawyers in the coming months.
Toronto managing partner Mark Shapiro says the strategy behind the Canadian push is the flow of trade between Canada and the U.S., where the firm has nearly 400 lawyers and 14 offices, including six in Michigan and locations in Washington D.C., Phoenix and Las Vegas. He says the firm aims to become one-stop shopping for Canadian and U.S. businesses looking for cross-border legal advice.
"I think clients appreciate the practicality and the efficiency of having their lawyers, their trusted advisers, able to assist them on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border," Mr. Shapiro said in an interview.
Mr. Judson actually began his career at McCarthys and was sent to New York for them when the firm launched a short-lived alliance with a Wall Street firm in 2000. He has been at Faskens for three years, but says Dickinson Wright's unique crossborder approach is what drew him to the firm.
"For me, a lot of my clients are truly crossborder, they do a lot of business in the States," Mr. Judson said. "You're constantly in this situation where you need integrated advice. And if you are with a firm that does Canadian-only, that puts you are a real disadvantage."
Ms. Swick said her practice, which includes advising companies on NAFTA disputes and anti-corruption rules, serves Canadian companies with activity in the U.S., making the new firm a natural fit.
She also said Dickinson Wright's relatively smaller size compares well with the sprawling global firms that have recently moved into the Canadian marketplace, such as Norton Rose Fulbright, Dentons and DLA Piper.
"You get lost in the shuffle, and clients aren't interested in that any more," she said of the megafirms. "They [clients] want cost-effective, timely, integrated advice."
Dickinson Wright has a long history in its native Michigan, and a longtime focus on the auto industry. It acts for Ford Motor Co., as it has for eight decades, and it was the law firm that helped Chrysler Corp. incorporate in the 1920s.
According to American Lawyer magazine, Dickinson Wright had gross revenue last year that increased by 8 per cent to $172-million. Profits per partner were up slightly as well, to $510,000. (Most Canadian law firms do not report their numbers in this way.)
In the last few years, Dickinson Wright has also been growing though mergers with other firms in the U.S., adding new offices in Phoenix and in Michigan, and expanding into Lexington, Ky.
Just this week it announced it was expanding its Nevada presence, absorbing 13 lawyers in Las Vegas and Reno, including intellectual property lawyer Jennifer Ko Kraft, who acts for reality TV's famous Kardashian family, including Caitlyn Jenner, whose transgender transformation was recently featured on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Jeff Gray