Bar Talk
Most law firms send their clients Christmas cards, although many are now in electronic form. But it's a competitive world, and Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP upped the ante on the spreading of holiday cheer this year.
The Bay Street firm boasted in a press release that it had organized the first "flash mob" by a Canadian law firm.
Before an unsuspecting lunchtime crowd in the Commerce Court food court last Wednesday, a group of 48 articling students, associates, staff and "a few partners" put on red Blakes baseball caps and performed a dance routine to I've Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. They offered no explanation, and quickly dispersed once it was over.
It had apparently been a hit at the office Christmas party. It is now on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than 11,000 times. That's impressive, considering Blakes only has about 550 lawyers. But if falls well short of the millions of page views that one flash mob video of a choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a food court has earned. Next year, Blakes, we expect some Handel.
On the move
Christopher Portner, a long-time partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto, has been appointed a commissioner with the Ontario Securities Commission, to serve a two-year term.
Prominent aviation lawyer Donald Gray - who is also a licensed pilot - is leaving Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP to join Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in its aerospace group as a partner, starting in January.
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