Erin Durant

3That's a good question. And, you know, a lot of my closest friends are outside of the practice of law. I like to stay connected to people that I met before law came and largely took over most of my life. But I think my closest friends would describe me, you know, first as an athlete. I'm, or at least now, a former athlete. I was a very competitive softball player. It was a passion of mine growing up. I played through university. I continued a few times, a few years while I was a lawyer, and it really is sort of something I enjoy most. And, you know, I like to give back now coaching in the sport and promoting the sport as I have been on social media the past the past few weeks.

4So yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people would, would say that. And I think I'm also known at times to be a little bit of a troublemaker in terms of, you know, pushing the agenda and not being shy to, to say certain things that maybe other people are afraid to say.

6No, no, the timing was It was sort of coincidental although I had in my mind that June 1st, you know, being almost halfway through the year, would be a good time to do it. But no, it wasn't my birthday present to myself, although it feels like it now, but it wasn't intentional.

8It's an interesting question. And when I left BLG, I, I think I knew that I was ready to leave the the giant firm environment, which is one where I always felt a little bit, a little bit different, you know, a little bit like it wasn't my long-term home, perhaps. And, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, and I spoke with a lot of different people and a lot of different firms and some amazing options. You know, I kind of felt like I needed some time and space just to really be able to do what I wanted to do and to figure out my, my career and what makes me happy.

9And, you know, I went into it setting it up fairly economically. You know, I have a small office I rent from a mentor here in town. I have a lot of investment in tech. And, you know, the idea was I'd be able to service my clients relatively economically and perhaps only for a short amount of time while I figure out, you know, what, what comes next, perhaps. But within a few weeks of being at this and doing the work required to prepare, I'm now much more all in and I'm just loving it. So, you know, it's not like I ever started out in law thinking I'd ever be able to do this. But I've really enjoyed the experience so far.

11I think the, the freedom to do things quickly and, and the way you want it's quite liberating, especially coming from a very large national firm where you know, there's multiple tiers of management, multiple levels of decision-making. Those firms aren't always best suited to move quickly on certain things or to, you know, accommodate different ideas. You know, even something as simple for me as deciding to get a computer program for my business, you know, that decision may take me a day or two, including the time required to go through the, you know, the onboarding process, which sometimes annoys me. But, you know, something like that at a large firm, you know, because they're buying it on scale, you know, it could take a year or more, you know, by the time they do a focus group and consult all the partners.

12And, you know, sometimes there's different tweaks that they want the software program to do that may not already be embedded. So it's just nice to be able to make a decision and move on from it. And it's just also nice. I felt like in an established firm, as someone who is a bit different, who likes to push the agenda and try different things, that it's a lot harder to do that in something that's already established than to just build something that's already, you know, in your vision, if that makes any sense.

14No, that's just simply a gift from my mother.

16No. And but behind that, there's a plant that was a gift that my former legal assistant at BLG made sure stayed alive the entire pandemic because it was in the BLG offices. And behind that is— that's actually a home plate, a softball home plate that was painted by an artist, and it was a fundraiser for the Canadian national team. So I kind of keep all that stuff there, you know, to remind me of a few of my passions and my friends.

19Yeah, so the associate is starting very, very soon, as soon as she gets called to the bar and gets her magical email that arrives on a Friday. Maybe it will come today, who knows. And then I have a summer student who I found on Twitter. I'm sharing her with a criminal law firm, so she's part of the 100 Interns Project that the Criminal Lawyers Association and David Sankoff Peter Sankoff had started up. So for her, you know, the overall cost to me isn't very high because she's with me part-time. And the law clerk, actually, I haven't publicly announced who it is yet, but it's a woman who I worked with extensively in the past, and she decided that when she saw the announcement that, you know, she wanted to come and work for me and really I'm of the belief that having good legal staff is the secret to my personal success.

20When I don't have good legal staff, I don't do well. I spend too much time worrying. So whenever I found a good law clerk who wanted to work with me, you know, I'd rather pay her than pay myself for the first few months. So that's sort of the theme. You know, it wasn't really meant to to be a larger team, and I didn't know if it would be that when I first decided to leave. Because when you leave a large firm or any firm, there's rules of professional conduct that need to be followed about, you know, the process for notifying clients and, you know, the decision being up to the client. And it was really important for me to maintain, you know, the best relationship as you can with the firm when you're leaving.

21So I didn't reach out to my main clients before I left. I had a good idea which ones would naturally come with me just based on the fact that I was the only one in the office with that particular expertise and the only one with the relationship. But I had one large client that provides me with, with regular, regular work, a significant amount that also requires junior lawyer support and law clerk support. And, you know, it was amazing to hear that that client decided to come with me, but based on people being away on vacation and other things, I didn't find out that they were coming until I think 3 days before I departed.

22So that sort of changed my plans in terms of hiring needs and everything. But yeah, I think what I have is a a small practice is different than what a lot of solos and smalls have in that I'm not starting out and having to build something brand new and bring in new business. And it's actually been something I've been struggling with. And maybe you have some ideas since you've run your own firm for a while, is a lot of people have told me when you first start your own firm, people are going to want to help you, and people are going to want to send you work. And I don't need any work, you know.

23I keep, you know, when I did the announcement, I said, don't send me any work, you know. But I'm still getting people wanting to send me work, which is a good problem to have. But I'm also trying to, you know, to grow at a comfortable pace and to, you know, maintain the type of practice I want to maintain, which is fewer quality clients, not high volume, not feeling like I'm on the hamster wheel going 100 miles per hour all the time. So there may be more growth in the future, but for now I'm comfortable largely maintaining my current client base. And once the associate comes on board, hopefully getting her involved in a few other things and maybe she'll get those referrals depending on, on what it is.

25There's a big pressure, and I think particularly in large firms or firms that have very set targets in terms of hours expectation, I, I feel like lawyers are always either way, way, way too busy beyond comfort, or they're panicking that they don't have enough work, and very few people are in this in-between state where they're just sort of happy with what they have. And I say big firms primarily because that's where I've been the last 6 years, and that's my main experience. It could be the same for other firms as well. And I also think that there's been a little bit of an image with lawyers wanting to project externally just how busy they are, and I don't know whether it's an intentional thing that people people project, you know, or it's the fact that we are so busy and we're just venting on it, you know, on social media about working late or working on the weekend.

26You know, I kind of think it's probably more of the venting but I think what it does is, is other people see, okay, well, there's this very successful lawyer and, you know, I see that they're working every night and every weekend and maybe that's what I need to do to be successful. So I think that it's definitely there, and it comes both, I think, from the firm environment, but then also just, you know, by observing our peers and observing what's going on on social media.

28Yeah, while I was at BLG, I've done 3 civil jury trials with others, and I was involved in some other trials before I joined BLG when I was at the— my first firm in the career in, in Barrie.

30I

32Yeah, I think what it— I think what it's done for me, that the more trials I've been involved with, is it's really changed my perspective just on the entire litigation process. Because, you know, what I've observed while you're preparing the case for trial, or even in trial, that a lot of times it comes down to very basic things like You know, what was written in the retainer letter for the expert? What documents were or were not provided to certain witnesses? You know, what admissions were obtained at discovery which were key? And I think when you approach the case like every case you have might end up in a trial, you pay a lot more attention to things that are actually important, like some of those details I just went through.

33And for me, at least, I pay far less attention to the noise. So the silly letters that sometimes get sent or the posturing or some of the motions that I question, what's the point of this motion when we can just have this dealt with by the pretrial judge or the trial judge? So I think it does change your perspective on litigation. And I think it's unfortunate that more trials aren't able to go ahead for smaller matters and that more lawyers aren't trained to do trials, because I think the lawyers that do have that trial experience, at least from what I've seen, they tend to take a more practical view of the litigation to get there.

34At least that's been my practice. But as you say, most cases will never go to trial. So some lawyers are extremely good and extremely efficient at dealing with those cases that are, as you said, $100,000, $200,000, and just getting them done in a quick and economical way. And I'm not here to say that settling those cases is a bad thing. Going ahead to trial with those things often don't make sense. And, and most of the trial-reported decisions that you'll see— and the reason I was able to go to trial so often was I did work for, for very large insurance companies primarily, and, and they have very deep pockets and are prepared to, to pay for a trial.

35But, but most litigants won't, can't, and probably shouldn't.

37So I have a trial preparation checklist, and I actually don't know the exact origins of it. It was something that my old firm used before BLG. I don't think it was created by that firm. Or if it was adopted from a CPD program. The lawyers at that firm also had origins with another firm that's very well known as being a litigation-specific firm. But the checklist was very handy because it had in one place all of the rules in terms of deadlines, suggestions of what should be done well leading up to the trial, leading up to the pretrial. So I don't use that checklist, you know, to, to the letter anymore in terms of making sure I'm, you know, writing something down and assigning a task to everyone because I'm now comfortable enough with the process that a lot of it, you know, kind of takes care of itself.

38But it's nice to have there as a reminder that, okay, have we thought about the request to admit yet? Okay, are we going to do it? Okay, who's going to do it? When's it going to be served? What types of things do we want in there? And what are the timings for serving the Evidence Act notices? And there's always issues in personal injury litigation in particular about, you know, whether it's a business record, whether it's going to be a report, whether you're going to file a report or call the witness. So it's good to start having those discussions relatively early. And I find that's an area where if you don't do a lot of trials You know, you might get bogged down in the details and not recognize just how much work some of that stuff is.

39So having that list is, is sort of my, my safety net, so to speak.

41It's either there or it's getting there. You know, I think the future of litigation in particular is you're going to have a lot more— it's like the traditional barrister style that you have in the UK where you have the litigator whose job it is to litigate. And around them, they can build whatever team they need. And I'm a believer that no law firm, despite what their marketing may imply, has all of the best lawyers in every single subject matter. Such marketing is just not accurate. So one thing I want to do at my firm is if a big file were to come in, I know I could handle much of the litigation in the court work, but I could align myself with subject matter experts.

42I could hire a firm that specializes in documentary discovery, so I don't have to have the software. I don't have to deal with that, that work. And by assembling the team that fits the case for each case, I think I would be able to, and other firms would be able to compete with with big firms. You know, I think where you get into some issues is on the truly massive litigation where, you know, you may have 10 lawyers working on it for, you know, a couple years at a time. I've actually never worked on those types of cases. It was never anything I was brought involved with at BLG, but I think there's always going to be a role for that type of gigantic case to probably reside with a big firm.

43And it suits them well too because they also do the other corporate side work for that client too. So I think for most things you'd be able to compete as a solo or small or boutique. You look at Lenczner Slaght, for example, in Toronto. They're now quite big, But, you know, they've really just grown organically over time, and they were doing the best litigation right from day one with a relatively small team. So I think, I think it's possible. And technology and the ability to work remotely and to share, share access to your files from wherever you are is a game changer for a lot of lawyers.

45I think they can. And, you know, and I'll tell you one, one story just about my, my former mentor and good friend Dan Dooley. So he isn't a, a well-known lawyer necessarily outside of Barrie, Northern Ontario, and some people that are involved with the Advocates' Society obviously would know Dooley, but He's probably one of the best litigators I had ever seen. And he started out— you mentioned the personal injury bar he started out at a firm in London. He was at Siskinds, which is still around. He moved to Barrie, ended up eventually working at Roger Oatley's firm, which is now obviously known as, as the crème de la crème of personal injury litigation.

46But But back in those days, Oatley did everything. Oatley did— he acted for insurance companies, he acted for professional liability insurers. He was just a litigator. So Dan grew up working with Roger and Jim Vigmond and that whole team. And ultimately there was a split with the firm because I think Roger decided and saw the writing on the wall with contingency fees that he could make a whole lot of money by just specializing in that area. But, you know, Dan had a phenomenal practice with great clients, loyal clients, you know, large, large, large, large insurance companies. You know, he was on big commercial cases, he did appeals, and, and he, you know, I think he built that without being in a traditional firm.

47But he didn't build it just from starting out right from law school by himself, you know, working his way up. He did have firms and mentors along the way. So, you know, I think it would be a very big challenge to do it entirely on your own, you know, from law school hanging the shingle and really trying to just fight and claw your way up. I don't want to say it's impossible, but You know, as you know, running your own small firm, the hardest part is, is getting the work and getting the experience. And I think it's helpful to have mentorship around and, and some clients to, to, you know, to get some experience with.

48So not, not impossible, but, but hard. But I, I know definitely people have done it, have done it well.

50Yeah,

53Awesome. So this membership plan is targeted to a relatively small portion of, of the clients that I serve. So in addition to being a litigator, I also have this side niche, so to speak, in, in sports work, which sometimes also rolls over into doing work for other not-for-profit organizations, usually in the sport space. And a lot of what they need is, you know, basic, basic stuff, you know, training for their staff, upgrading of their policies. You know, they don't have a huge budget for legal services. And what tends to happen is because they don't have a huge budget for legal services, they're afraid to pick up the phone. And, you know, and then they pick up the phone too late, and then they're in a big a big mess and it costs them a lot of money to get out of the mess.

54So the idea of this subscription service is to cater to those clients so you can give them certain benefits on an ongoing basis, like training, like customized monthly updates on what's going on in the law or certain cases specifically designed for them. And yeah, It was a bit of a creative thing I wanted to do. I had spoken to some of my clients in advance about whether it would be something of interest to them, and, and really we're working it out together in terms of developing even the price point and different things. I have one client who's agreed to we're gonna do similar stuff for them but just on an hourly basis for a few months, and then depending on how much time is required, we might adjust the pricing.

55But it's really just something that I thought might be a benefit to clients in terms of predictability and pricing. And also just subscription services have become such a common way to provide service outside of law. You know, people are used to paying subscriptions. For different things, software apps, you know, gym memberships, online memberships. So, you know, I'm gonna give it a try. I literally just launched that 2 days ago. So I, you know, it's not like I'm rolling in money from the subscription service, but I'm gonna see how it works and maybe tweak it. And if that plan works, I might be able to develop similar things But I can't picture how it would work from a strictly litigation services perspective just because litigation needs are so unpredictable.

56But we'll see.

58Yeah, that's something I, I always wanted to do from the beginning of starting my own business because I know so many lawyers have never run a civil trial. A lot of smaller personal injury firms in particular, they run quite lean in terms of staff, and then if they have a big trial, it becomes a pretty big issue in the office in terms of everyone having to be at the trial and everything else sort of getting left behind. So I already have some clients One in particular with a big trial coming up early next year, so I've agreed to assist on that case. It's likely to proceed because of just the nature of the dispute and the parties involved.

59I'm quite flexible in how I deal with fees in those circumstances. I've had some other lawyers reach out in terms of what I would do and would I do it on contingency. I don't think I ever would, to be honest, because I have no control over the case and selecting the case or even getting the case ready for trial, really, because all the discoveries are done, the expert reports are done by the time I get involved. So one of the clients that I have, it was best for that client to pay me a monthly fee leading up to the trial. That I would still get even if the trial settles. But then they're not paying me, you know, $100,000 in one month to do the trial.

60It also makes me available to help with the pre-trial work in terms of the, you know, the research that might be required, the Evidence Act notices, dividing up the witnesses in terms of what part of the case I'll handle, introducing me to the client. I think that model is going to work quite well. Other people who I've chatted with who don't have trials coming up right now and are interested in the service, for them, they've indicated that a pure hourly model just might work better for them. Again, it's something that's new and I'm quite flexible in trying to work out what would work best.

62So, so technically I live in the city of Ottawa, but Ottawa is a big sprawling city. So I live, I live in a community called VARS, which is on the extreme edge of the city. It's basically rural Ottawa. And if you went one road over from where I live, you would no longer be in Ottawa. So I'm barely in the city.

64Yeah, yeah. So, you know, my office is really at my house, to be honest, but I didn't want to use my house as my business address, primarily because for one of my clients, I deal with a lot of self-represented litigants, and I didn't want them coming to my house.

66so yeah, I have a rented office space in the community called Russell, and it's at another law firm called Van Dusen Law with Mike Van Dusen. He's a well-known lawyer here in Ottawa. He's been practicing for, for a number of years, so he agreed to sort of let me use his desk in his office, and I can go there and work if I want. I think I've been there twice, but really it's a place for my mail to go, and, and he does have some other services that I don't there. You know, he has a large photocopier and the binding machine in the event I ever need that stuff again. So yeah, so I'm, I'm in Vars the office is in Russell, my associate lives in Toronto, and my law clerk lives in Barrie.

68It's a very nice place to practice law. My list of people to be careful of and avoid would probably fit on one hand and wouldn't even take up the entire hand. So yeah, it's a community. So many people, when they learned I was going on my own, wanted to help out, offered me space, offered me different opportunities even within their firm on an eat what you kill model, so many different things. So yeah, I love practicing law. Law in Ottawa. It's, it's good work, it's good people, and it really is a good community.

70No, I'm originally from a small town called Prescott, Ontario, which is roughly halfway between Ottawa and Kingston.

72Yeah, yeah. And it's close for my husband as well. He's originally from the Ottawa Valley. Cobden, another, another small town. So Ottawa is sort of a good midway point for, for us to be, be close to our families.

74Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed this as well.