Firm recently named real estate lawyer Shawn Wolfson the new managing partner
Blaney McMurtry LLP recently named Shawn Wolfson, a real estate lawyer called to the bar in 2002, as the firm’s new managing partner. He spoke with Canadian Lawyer about his plans for the new role, COVID, staffing, real estate law, and trends in the firm’s business.
What are you looking to achieve in this new role?
There are a few things. The first is mending or reinvigoration, if you will, of the social fabric of the firm. COVID caused a retreat in that respect. We were all working remotely. We were working with each other across a screen or over the telephone, and it’s just not the same.
So, one of my primary objectives and immediate objectives, I think, is to try and invest as much time as possible to create some new opportunities for everyone – our partners, our lawyers, assistants and staff – to reintegrate and renew our existing relationships, and get to know the people who they haven’t even met face-to-face yet.
Secondly, it’s really to maintain and even strengthen the balance between our firm’s practices.
We’re a full-service firm. But I think we’re slightly different from the other full-service firms. We have a larger litigation component than others. We have much larger corporate real estate component with a smaller litigation component factored in. We have a fantastic balance with that, which we need to maintain, particularly given signs of some economic slowdown over the next year or two.
In 2008, I was just a freshly minted equity partner. It was the first time I saw how our different departments interplay. I’m a real estate lawyer. And our practice had always been thriving. Then, of course, 2008 hits.
As expected, our corporate and real estate practices slowed down. But at the same time, our insurance groups and commercial litigation group were largely unaffected, providing this great amount of ballast for us. And then we had other groups – bankruptcy and insolvency, for example – just picked up a huge head of steam. So, the corporate real estate practices – we ended up weathering the storm by assisting some of those other groups. In the end, we emerged out of that recession stronger. We were lucky we didn’t have to lay off a single employee: no lawyer, clerk, or assistant during that period.
Through that experience, we learned about that balance in terms of how our practices perform in different economic cycles and how they complement one another in ways that won’t necessarily be obvious at first.
The third, and probably the most obvious for any managing partner, is the plan for our future. In 2024, our firm will be celebrating its 70th anniversary. I’m proud and excited and looking forward to ensuring that our next 70 years are as successful as the first 70 as we continue adapting to the industry changes.
What are the main trends currently in real estate law?
We’re a regional firm centred in Toronto. Our path has been the story of Toronto over the last few years.
Most recently, in Toronto, we saw this mad dash to file residential development applications before the city’s inclusionary zoning policies and bylaws came into effect in September 2022. We were busy with our developer clients, like many firms in the city.
Province-wide, one of the major trends we’ve seen is this repurposing of land as a reflection of the changing economic landscape. Across North America – if not the world – we’ve witnessed lands slated initially for retail development now redeveloped to include residential components, seniors-living components, and self-storage uses. These uses are increasing because these uses are increasingly in demand nowadays.
It used to be said, “if you build it, they will come.” That doesn’t seem to be the mantra now. Developers are now taking much more care in identifying and satisfying the needs of their communities. There’s a demise of the brick-and-mortar retail business. Certainly, some retail will always be a factor. But these large swaths of land and large developments originally slated for retail are now being changed over and repurposed for other uses.
In the firm’s business, what are the main trends, generally?
Many trends took a hard left when COVID hit. All of our forecasts became largely meaningless. I spent nine years under our former managing partner, Maria Scarfo. I was her, as I say, “Minister of Finance” all of those nine years. We worked very closely together.
We settled into what our new normal was. Then after that, business was surprisingly robust. We initially expected clients to sit by the sidelines while weathering the storm until COVID ended. But in most cases, after the initial shock of COVID wore off and everyone got themselves centred on the matter, transaction flow returned to normal, if not even busier.
Now, we’re seeing a bit of a slowdown.
The other thing we’re seeing is an increase in costs. It’s pretty much across the board. Obviously, part of this was related to inflation and increased interest rates.
Most significantly, we’ve seen cost increases as a result of staffing. And this is really at all levels, from lawyers, clerks and assistants. Everyone in the industry is facing this.
Part of that is because, once things settled down with COVID, there was this whirlwind of turnover activity – primarily lawyers, but not exclusively. It was clerks and assistants as well. It was because, suddenly, the US firms had so much pent-up demand. It seemed they were offering gobs of money for people and would offer remote working. That just percolated throughout the industry and drove up costs for everyone.
How is staffing? Is the firm experiencing higher-than-normal turnover?
It’s been higher than the pre-COVID levels. But, it is no greater than what we hear on the street, with the same ebb and flow.
When the pandemic began, there was no movement at all. That was probably the calm before the storm. In 2021, there was an industry whirlwind of associate and law student movement, first to the states. It percolated throughout all the law firms.
This trend started tapering off in the first half of 2022. The backlog of client demand was processed, and inflation and interest rate hikes cooled that demand. We’re seeing that that flurry of activity has pretty much stalled.
The labour market remains tight across all industries. We’ll probably be that way for a time. But that surge in turnover, the ebb and flow in the legal sector, really was at the same pace with all industries, I think, across Canada.
For COVID and staffing, I credit Maria for this great success, for pivoting quickly to a remote environment. But the flip side of that success was that it’s been difficult to encourage people to return to downtown Toronto.
There’s this lack of affordability in the housing market in Toronto, which means that many professionals will have to spend not an insignificant amount of time commuting. I think their reticence to come back to the office is understandable. The problem is that law is a social profession and a lifetime apprenticeship program.
At least from a cultural perspective, work isn’t simply about the job. It’s about people. Communicating and training through pixels on a screen makes one feel like inventory, not like important and contributing team members. Fundamentally, that’s what we’ve always been. We’ve always been a team with a great social environment. And that’s why I think we need to get back on that track.
*answers have been shortened for length and clarity
