66 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JUNE 2016
IN-HOUSE ADVISOR
In-house counsel stand to benefit
from a growing interest in funding legal
innovation, and a lack of alternative
business structures won't slow
down the disruption
BY SANDRA RUBIN ILLUSTRATION BY GARY NEILL
Funding
INNOVATION
CANADIAN LAW SOCIETIES are big flirts, at least when it comes to alternative business
structures (ABS) and allowing non-lawyers to own stakes in legal-services delivery companies.
But what they're flirting with is irrelevancy.
Last year, the Law Society of Upper Canada dropped the idea of allowing non-lawyers to
hold majority ownership of law firms, as in England and Australia where firms can list shares
on an exchange or raise capital from private-equity funds instead of relying solely on funds
raised through debt.
But the working group has continued to examine the possibility of allowing non-lawyers
to hold a minority stake in areas of legal services not well served by traditional practices in the
name of fostering innovation.
e exercise has largely been met with a collective yawn.
Has innovation been sitting on its hands while Ontario's law society decides whether to bless
non-lawyer minority ownership of innovative structures? In-house lawyers are increasingly in-
sistent legal fees be reined in and law firms are increasingly desperate to find ways to do that. Is
that all on hold?
"Innovation is not waiting. at's something we should all be aware of," says Chris Bentley,
Executive Director of the Legal Innovation Zone at Ryerson University in Toronto. "Every
corporation that wants to survive is in a race to the next innovative level. Every one. And I bet
every corporation is going to be looking for innovative ways for their legal department either
