Linda Fuerst is moving to Toronto-based Crawley MacKewn Brush LLP.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
For veteran securities litigator Linda Fuerst, smaller is better.
After nine years at one of the country’s largest law firms, Norton Rose Fulbright, Ms. Fuerst is moving to Toronto-based Crawley MacKewn Brush LLP. The boutique firm is set to announce the new partner’s arrival on Monday.
Ms. Fuerst has either defended or prosecuted many of the biggest insider trading, market manipulation and class-action cases over the past four decades, initially as a lawyer at the Ontario Securities Commission, then in private practice. CMB focuses on defending companies and individuals in complex commercial files, including white-collar crime cases, and before capital markets regulators.
Ms. Fuerst’s decision to join her new firm reflects a common path for corporate litigators: They gravitate to smaller firms to work with like-minded lawyers and minimize client conflicts.
“Crawley MacKewn Brush is highly respected, the partners love what they do and they do it well,” said Ms. Fuerst in an interview. “I’m thrilled to join an all-star team with the expertise and bench strength to handle large, complex cases.”
While not her primary reason for making the move, she agreed that reducing conflicts “is a distinct advantage” of moving to a boutique law firm such as CMB, now home to just 20 professionals.
By contrast, large law firms offering services in multiple areas of practice often have to turn away assignments from potential clients because the work could conflict with the interests of another client. For example, a litigator may be forced to decline work from a business planning to sue a financial institution if corporate partners worked for the lender.
“Client conflicts are a reality of life at all of the large full-service corporate firms,” Ms. Fuerst said. “I frequently turned away work, and when I did so, I often referred those clients to CMB where I was confident that they would receive excellent service.”
CMB’s named partners, Alistair Crawley, Melissa MacKewn, and Robert Brush, all worked in large national law firms before moving to a boutique environment (Crawley and MacKewn at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP and Crawley and Brush at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP).
Ms. Fuerst’s arrival “will take our firm to the next level,” Mr. Crawley said in an interview. Her “experience with the country’s largest corporations and institutions gives us an exciting opportunity to build our client base.”
Ms. Fuerst’s plans include building CMB’s expertise in defending companies against class-action lawsuits, a growing source of commercial litigation, and expanding its internal investigations practice.
Ms. Fuerst spent the first part of her career working for securities regulators and prosecutors on both sides of the border. After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1981, she clerked for the chief justice of the High Court of Ontario, and then worked as both criminal defence counsel and as a part-time assistant Crown attorney before joining the enforcement arm of the Ontario Securities Commission as senior investigation counsel.
In the early 1990s, the OSC sent Ms. Fuerst to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington. She worked on a number of insider trading cases and brought what she learned back to the Canadian regulator. Ms. MacKewn also prosecuted high-profile investment fraud cases at the OSC while on secondment from Fasken.
In 1994, Ms. Fuerst left the OSC to join boutique firm Lenczner Slaght LLP, which was founded in 1992 by litigators who also grew frustrated with conflicts that came with working at a large firm. She moved to Norton Rose in 2015.