Lexpert Magazine

46 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2017 | ACCOUNTING FIRMS IN LAW | areas. "e Big Four are much more agile and creative than law firms," says Paolo Be- rard, Managing Counsel North America Home at Centrica, an international energy and services company. "Even as law firms are having trouble moving away from the billable hour, the Big Four are being pro- active and they're expanding what they do because they want to be in a company's boardroom every six months." So if there's any more doubt that Can- ada's major firms will have to spread their wings in Big Four fashion, it's quickly dis- appearing. What prompted the burst of ur- gency evidenced by the Dentons and Ben- nett Jones appointments, however, is the accounting firms' resolute expansion into legal services in recent years. "I wouldn't be surprised if, 10 years down the road, law firms will have to go toe-to-toe with the Big Four or otherwise differentiate themselves in some way," says Geoff Creighton, a review committee member for BlackRock Canada Funds and former chair of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association. For the most part, the Big Four are main- taining a studied insistence that they're not poaching on lawyers' hallowed territory of high-end business law. But there's plenty of evidence that their long-term goals reach well beyond the scope of what they have characterized as "complementary" legal services. "e Big Four have been quiet needs on demand at law firms, and de- liver short-term projects or special engage- ments." e Conduit acquisition followed by one week an alliance with Kira Systems, which has developed a machine-learning contract analysis system. e other members of the Big Four — KPMG and PwC — have also expanded in recent years, but they have for the most part confined themselves to tax and im- migration practices. In 2012, immigra- tion firm Greenberg Turner merged with KPMG Law LLP, which also provided tax services through a previous combination with Moskowitz & Meredith LLP. For its part, PwC bought yet another immigra- tion firm, Bomza Law Group, in 2014 and, one year later, formally joined with Wilson & Partners LLP to form PwC Law LLP, which provides Canadian tax advice and international immigration services. Still, the expansionary activities of De- loitte, KPMG and PwC qualify as con- tained. Dabbling in legal tax services is nothing new for the Big Four, and immi- gration law, largely the province of "consul- tants" in any event, seems a natural add-on to entities with a huge international client base. Even Deloitte's aggressive foray into ancillary services reflects the Big Four's traditional role as supporting consultants to law firms. It's also reflective of a market that is increasingly populated by non-legal providers. What distinguishes Deloitte in this market, however, is that its newly acquired ancillary-services practices will benefit immensely from the synergies of the firm's international network, bringing in clients whose use of Deloitte's expand- ing menu of legal services in Canada will doubtlessly be encouraged. e stalking horse for the scope of the Big Four's future in Canada is likely to be EY Law. In this regard, it's of some inter- est that George Reis, the managing part- ner of EY's business immigration services, told Law Times that the firm's business law practice would draw on "EY's vast global legal network to support its global inbound clients in navigating the complexities of today's business environment." In this con- text, failing to recognize that "support" almost certainly includes referral work bor- ders on naïveté. It would also be a mistake to underes- timate the referral clout of the Big Four's about what they're doing, working in the weeds to bulk up on their legal-services capabilities while the traditional law firms have been happy sailing along on a 20-year bull run," says Lexpert columnist Heather Suttie, a Toronto-based legal marketing and business development consultant who was formerly media relations director for Ernst & Young. In 2016, Ernst & Young Canada merged Couzin Taylor LLP, an in-house tax bou- tique long associated with EY, and Egan LLP, a business immigration boutique founded by lawyers formerly associated with EY's defunct satellite law firm, Dono- hue, Ernst & Young LLP. e two then combined with a business law services group led by former Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP partner Tony Kramreither to form EY Law LLP. e new firm promised to deliver "integrated, multi-disciplinary services including corporate reorganiza- tions, mergers and acquisitions, financings, joint ventures, transfer pricing, draing, commercial contracts, policies, proce- dures and corporate secretarial services." e scope of these services, arguably, gives "complementary" new meaning. Deloitte has taken a different, but equally ambitious and forward-looking approach to the provision of legal services. In 2013, Deloitte Tax Law LLP allied with immigration boutiques Shouli & Partners LLP in 2013 and Guberman Garson Segal LLP in 2014 to create an international im- migration law entity. About the same time, Deloitte broad- ened its legal-services profile by moving aggressively into the ancillary-services le- gal market. In 2014, the accounting firm acquired ATD Legal Services, an end-to- end discovery service provider with proven e-discovery capabilities. More recently, in 2016, Deloitte absorbed Conduit Law, which offers "outsourced lawyers to sup- port in-house legal teams, meet business "As opposed to going into full-service law, what we're asking ourselves is, what services complement the existing professional services that Ernst & Young provides? We're looking to add legal services where our client base is looking for a seamless provider." DAVID ROBERTSON > EY LAW LLP

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