The world’s first publicly traded law firm has Canada in its crosshairs.
Slater & Gordon, one of the largest law firms in Australia, is “absolutely” considering coming to Canada if the country’s law societies permit non-lawyers to invest in law firms, says Andrew Grech, managing director of the firm. “We are studying the market, trying to make sure that, if the opportunity arises in Canada, we’re in a position to make some intelligent decisions.”
At the moment, Slater & Gordon can only operate in Australia and the U.K., where non-lawyer investment is legal.
But that could change soon. The Canadian Bar Association recently said firms with non-lawyer owners, called alternative business structures (ABS), should be legal. And the issue is under discussion at the Law Society of Upper Canada.
In the meantime, Slater & Gordon continues to grow at a rapid pace. Since the firm went public in 2007, its annual revenue has skyrocketed from $63 million to about $420 million. According to Grech, the firm achieved about 60 percent of that growth by acquiring other firms across Australia and the U.K.
If Slater & Gordon entered the Canadian market, Grech says it would focus on everyday legal problems, such as family and personal injury law.
In the Canadian legal community, many fear that publicly traded law firms will ultimately put the interests of shareholders over those of their clients — a concern that Grech dismisses as “nonsense,” so long as the industry remains well regulated. (In fact, the firm’s prospectus warns potential investors that “the duty to the client will prevail over the duty to Shareholders.”)
Grech also says that Slater & Gordon has increased access to justice for everyday people, particularly in the field of personal injury law, which makes up 80 percent of the firm’s global practice. The money the firm has raised from non-lawyer investors, he says, has helped the firm “fund many more cases than we otherwise would have been able to.”
But Adam Wagman, a partner at Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP in Toronto, says that, at least in Canada, there is no access-to-justice crisis in personal injury law.
“Do clients have difficulty finding lawyers to handle personal injury cases? Absolutely not,” he says. “All [injured people] need to do is turn on their television, turn on their radio or do a quick Google search and they’ll have many lawyers who will want to take on their case.”
In his view, the most pressing access-to-justice problems exist in the realms of criminal and family law — and thus law societies should not allow firms such as Slater & Gordon into Canada unless it is clear that doing so will address that need. “If we can get those unrepresented criminal law defendants and family law litigants some representation, and we believe [alternative business structures] are going to help with that, because we have actual empirical evidence that says that it will, I’m all for it.”