Lawyer Radha Curpen at the McMillan offices in Vancouver, B.C., on Sept. 20.Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
Legal Moves is a monthly roundup of job changes at Canada’s law firms.
When the national recruitment director at McMillan LLP asked Radha Curpen for a meeting, she was expecting a 30-minute get-to-know-you coffee.
“It turned into hours,” she said.
Sitting at the meeting was McMillan’s managing partner in Vancouver, Cory Kent, commercial lawyer Joanna Dawson and the firm’s then-chief executive officer and managing partner Tim Murphy.
The four had instant chemistry.
Ms. Curpen said the McMillan team showed up earnestly interested in her – her legal career, but also who she was as a person and her long-term goals. Until March, Ms. Curpen had been the managing partner at Bennett Jones’s Vancouver office, a role she had held for seven years. Under her leadership, the office grew from around 10 lawyers to 65, she said.
Now, Ms. Curpen was ready to build something new.
At McMillan, she was told, the firm strove to be client-centric, but they also prioritized supporting and empowering their people. They were committed to a culture of inclusion and everyone was encouraged to work across jurisdictions. “You’re not limited in your geography,” she said.
One meeting turned into many. And in August, Ms. Curpen made the jump to McMillan, joining the firm as the national client relationship ambassador, a unique role that has her pulling together talent from different practice areas and in different regions of the country to proactively form strategies for clients on the legal issues of the day.
Take “greenwashing” for example, she said. There have been a number of amendments to the Competition Act, which aim to hold companies accountable for their environmental representations. In her role, Ms. Curpen co-ordinates different practice groups and experts – those who specialize in the Competition Act, as well as environmental lawyers, ESG lawyers, aboriginal law experts and others – in order to pull together the best road map for clients.
“It’s about covering each other’s blind spots,” she said.
In her role at McMillan, Ms. Curpen co-ordinates different practice groups and experts in order to pull together the best road map for clients.Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Curpen also comes to McMillan as the group head of the ESG and sustainability practice. In the ESG space, she says there has been a lot of recent discussion about companies “pulling back” on these efforts.
“When we talk about ESG, it’s not about a particular political agenda or a social outcome. It is about a business tool for decision making. It’s about an instrument that can be used as a weapon against companies or used as a shield to protect oneself as people come after you,” she said. “ESG represents 21st-century risk and opportunity.”
The foundations of ESG have been around for many years. “While acronyms or labels may change, the underlying concepts are enduring,” she said.
(Tim Murphy left McMillan in August to join Aecon Group Inc. as the executive vice-president and chief strategic affairs officer.)
July and August marked a flurry of legal moves across Canadian law firms.
This summer, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP welcomed a number of new partner hires: securities and corporate lawyer Alex Parken, tax and estate lawyer Samantha Wu, tax lawyer Bobby Solhi and corporate lawyer Zeke Purves-Smith all joined the partnership. Mr. Purves-Smith made the move to Cassels after spending years working in private equity, most recently with Durum Capital Inc. “Cassels is not only a world class firm in terms of history and reputation but it’s very entrepreneurial,” he said when asked why he made the jump.
Meanwhile at Torys, litigator Anne Merminod – whose practice centres on class-action defence – has joined the firm’s Montreal office as a partner. “With more and more class actions proceeding to long and complex trials in Quebec, Anne’s wealth of experience in such proceedings will contribute to help meeting client demands as they face a rising number of these disputes,” the office’s managing partner, Sylvie Rodrigue, said in a release.
At Stikeman Elliott, Jordan Fremont joined the firm’s Toronto pensions and benefits group in July. “It was about a great opportunity to move to a platform that I think is at the leading edge of the work I do,” he said.
This August, Bennett Jones announced that Ron Ferguson would be joining the firm’s mergers and acquisitions and private equity groups as a partner in the Toronto office. In a release, the firm touted Mr. Ferguson’s 25 years of experience as a deal maker.
Also this summer, Dentons grew with hires across the country. In Toronto, the firm brought on Kenneth Szeto as a partner in the corporate group. In Montreal, Ioana Jurca joined the litigation and dispute resolution group as a partner.
“Ioana’s exceptional track record and extensive experience appearing before various Quebec courts and administrative tribunals will be a great asset to our clients and complement our existing bench strength across various sectors,” Mark Evans, Denton’s national practice group leader of the litigation and dispute resolution group, said in a release.
Ms. Jurca joins other recent arrivals Alexandre-Philippe Avard and Sylvain Bélair in Montreal. The firm also announced that Scott Wilson had been appointed as the new managing partner in Dentons’s Vancouver office.
Keep The Globe up to date on your people moves: rdoolittle@globeandmail.com