Sean Weir, National Managing Partner of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP – Canada’s largest full-service law firm – talked to The Lawyers Weekly recently for Part 2 of its series on how law firms are weathering the recession:

Unlike their United States counterparts that either collapsed—  such as Washington, D.C.-based global firm, Howrey LLP, in March—  or took serious hits to their bottom line, Canada’s big law firms weathered the recent financial crisis and recession relatively well, says Ottawa lawyer Jordan Furlong, a partner with law-firm consultancy, Edge International, who also runs the Law21.ca blog, and is a columnist for The Lawyers Weekly.

“That’s not to say big firms in Canada didn’t suffer and feel some pain during the recession. But at no point did it get to the stage where rumours were circulating that X firm was in danger of falling apart.”

However, … Read More »

Sean Weir, National Managing Partner of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP – Canada’s largest full-service law firm – talked to The Lawyers Weekly recently on the Firm’s growth and it’s “multi-heads-are-better-than-one” model:

Formed from a merger of five regional firms on March 1, 2000, Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) LLP arrived on the national scene a year after seven other large firms were dubbed the “Seven Sisters.”

While not a sibling in that family, BLG is — a little more than a decade later — the Big Mamma of Canadian law firms. With about 760 lawyers at offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Waterloo, Calgary and Vancouver, it is, by that head count, the country’s largest firm and the size of top firms in the U.S. However, BLG would not have come to be had it not been for one of the sisters, McCarthy Tétrault … Read More »

In a constantly changing regulatory and business environment, it can be difficult for businesses to keep up. And 2012 will be no exception – both domestic and foreign investors will face challenges and meet opportunities doing business in Canada. From the evolving class action lawsuit to changing Aboriginal consultation requirements and a harder hitting tax man, Sein Weir, national managing partner at BLG LLP, predicts the issues likely to impact the corporate landscape and dominate headlines in 2012.

1. Keeping the spark alive – ensuring foreign investors keep coming back for more

“Canada’s North was an alluring target for international development companies in 2011 and in fact in October, Fortune magazine ranked Canada No. 1 in its annual look at the Best Countries for Business,” says Weir. “Significant investment in the natural resource sector represented a boon for the Canadian economy but … Read More »