44 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
APRIL/MAY 2017
| BOUTIQUES & SPECIALTY FIRMS |
RICHARD KIRBY
Offices: Calgary,
Edmonton, Saskatoon
Focus: Tax
CREATIVITY
OVER SPREADSHEETS
FELESKY FLYNN LLP
Young lawyers who are interested in tax and want to work at a large firm also
oen get stuck working on a real estate file or doing securities work as part of
their training. Not at Felesky Flynn, a 40-lawyer tax boutique. It's all tax, all the
time, right from day one, "which makes us the top choice for somebody who only
wants to practise tax," says Richard Kirby, managing partner of the boutique's
Edmonton office.
Big, mid-size and regional firms are all Felesky Flynn's natural competitors for
tax work. Does he worry? Nah. "e shining stars of those firms are the securities
lawyers. I think tax lawyers, especially in the big firms, are not given the recogni-
tion they deserve because they're not looked at as real profit centres. What they
are seen as is service providers to their securities groups and their
M&A groups."
e large firms are built to work on large matters where they can charge by the
hour and put a lot of bodies on file, Kirby says. Tax doesn't use much leverage.
A lot of the brilliant tax practitioners are not client-facing, but they bring "huge
value by coming up with ideas. ose people don't get recognized in the big firms
because they don't show revenue on their spreadsheet. ey're brilliant, they may
come up with great ideas, but they're not valued properly because firms just want
to know how many hours they've billed and how many bodies they've kept busy."
at even trickles down to compensation, he says. "In the big firms, who gets
compensated the most? e securities and M&A guys." How does Felesky Flynn's
compensation levels compare? "Our compensation would probably be higher, or
on par with a big-firm superstar tax practitioner." Still, the main strategy for gain-
ing work is finding people who are jazzed about tax "then giving them lots of time
to think about creative options for their clients.
"Tax is as much an art as it is a science. We value creativity over spreadsheets;
we're probably a hybrid between a law firm and academia. We really value the
creative process — and those are hours that don't land on the timesheet. at's
very hard to do at a big firm."
CAROL HANSELL
Office: Toronto
Focus: Corporate Governance
TECHNOLOGY WILL
NEVER REPLACE JUDGMENT
HANSELL LLP
Carol Hansell already had a top name in corporate governance when she le her longtime corporate
lawfirm in 2013 to form her own governance-based boutique. at makes natural competitors for her
five-lawyer boutique just about every other large and mid-sized law firm out there. "When it comes to
corporate lawyers, everybody deals with governance to some extent," says Hansell.
With law being commoditized, it's driving prices lower so boutiques like hers can't compete on price
alone — and she is far too pragmatic to try. "We're very careful with our pricing but when it comes to
judgment-based advice, technology won't ever overwhelm that. I guess the message at the end of the
day is, getting judgment-based advice from somebody whose judgment you want will never go out of
style. We're not anybody's regular law firm. ey come to use for very specific advice at a senior level."
People may go to Hansell for that highly governance-focused expertise, but sometimes they get more
than they bargained for — in a good way. Her boutique also includes non-legal analysts, government-
