Heenan Blaikie LLP's 35-lawyer Vancouver office was one of the stronger of 10 global offices – but it was not enough to prevent partners at the 40-year-old law firm from voting for dissolution, Heenan Blaikie partner Craig Munroe told Business in Vancouver February 5.
"Vancouver was performing quite well and was definitely performing in the black," Munroe said.
Dozens of lawyers based in other Canadian Heenan Blaikie offices have left the firm in recent weeks whereas only three lawyers have left the Vancouver office in the past six months, Munroe said.
He would not point the finger at any other office, however.
"We're one partnership and we all bear responsibility for the decisions that are made," he said "We're not separate profit centres."
He believes that falling revenue was one problem at the firm.
"It's never only one thing," he said. "There were some partners who wanted to go in different directions, as there often are. There's a general downturn in the legal market that all firms are feeling and that puts pressure on existing fault lines that every organization has. So, there was a collective decision to look down the road and make an honest determination of where the firm was heading."
Rather than wait to be forced into dissolution, partners felt the best way to satisfy obligations to clients, staff and others was to vote to dissolve now, Munroe added.
Munroe plans to create a labour- and litigation-focused law firm that includes five former Heenan Blaikie partners and 10 associates and will be named Gall, Legge, Grant and Munroe LLP.
He believes the remaining Heenan Blaikie lawyers in Vancouver will also try to stay together, at least in the short term, before considering joining another national firm.
"Obviously we're all sorry that such a big and venerable national institution has come to the point where it has to dissolve and have everybody move on," he said of Heenan Blaikie.
Heenan Blaikie has been known for being able to attract lawyers influential in both the BC Liberal Party and the federal Liberal Party of Canada.
Former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Pierre Trudeau have been partners. Former B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant was a partner in Heenan Blaikie's Vancouver office.
