An evening of Beauty and the beat
Miss Universe, Miss Information and Farley Flex at AIDSbeat
It
has to be said: Patricia Olasker, a
corporate practitioner at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, may be one of the most tenacious people to walk the face of the Earth. Ms. Olasker is also the co- chair of AIDSbeat, the annual battle of the Bay Street law firm bands. There is a limit to how many times one can rebuff her request to be a judge. That limit is three.
The three previous years, when unable to make it, the other judges were people like Dale Lastman of Goodmans, Sheila Block of Torys, Patrick Monahan, the Dean of Osgoode Hall, Terry O’Sullivan of Lax O’Sullivan Scott, Mr. Justice Jim Farley. Not strictly beautiful people per se, but rather highly accomplished people. People one would be pleased to appear beside in public.
This year, for the 10th anniversary, who does she get to be a fellow judge? Natalie Glebova, Miss Universe. We’d be lying if we told you the notion of standing on stage in front of 1,500 people beside the most beautiful woman in the world wasn’t the teeniest bit daunting.
We had requested a banner reading “Miss Information” to put ourselves on a more equal footing. It didn’t materialize. It didn’t matter. We could never be on equal footing. Ms. Glebova is about seven feet tall. She is also reasonably breathtaking and a very good sport about posing for photos beside middle-aged lawyers wearing slightly dazzled expressions.
A gem of a moment came when Don Jack of Lerners confided at the VIP reception before the event that he wasn’t really there for the music — surprise — “I came just to see Miss Universe.” Not 30 seconds later Ms. Glebova herself squeezed right by him in the packed room. “ Well?” he was asked. “How was it? You actually touched?”
“Why, who was that?” asked Mr. Jack, clearly perplexed. In fairness to Mr. Jack, she wasn’t wearing her sash at that point. In fairness to anyone reading, it was a room full of, um, highly accomplished people.
Among the others who turned out were Rob Gemmell, president of Citigroup Markets Canada; Larry Lowenstein and Brett Ledger ( who was there to see Ms. Olasker, not Miss Universe) from Osler Hoskin & Harcourt; Tom Smee, senior vice-president of RBC Financial; Andrew Iacobucci, vice-president corporate development Loblaws; Melanie Aitken, assistant deputy commissioner, mergers, at the Competition Bureau; Peter Jervis from Lerners; Pamela Foy from the OSC; Karen Brookman, president of Commonwealth Legal and Glenn Keeling, president of Georgeson Shareholder.
We also spotted (either the people or the nametags) Wayne Newling, president of Compushare Trust; Paul Cavalluzzo of Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish; Alan Aucoin of Blake Cassels & Graydon; Norm Emblem of Fraser Milner Casgrain; Lorne Fox of Glaxosmithkline; Mark Young of Cassels Brock & Blackwell and Lyle Strachan, COO of Mintz & Partners.
Back to the judges. It fell to Farley Flex of Canadian Idol to lend some real credibility to the office — although Ms. Universe was very serious about taking notes on the official note- taking sheet. At times she looked like she was studying.
Turns out Mr. Flex, a music producer, excited as much or more attention as Ms. Glebova among the younger crowd. We can also report he spent much of the evening checking his BlackBerry. It was surprisingly lawyerlike, really.
As for his uncensored take on the array of talent, we will give you the info on the bands — then a few random remarks. You can try to match them up. We would never be so indiscreet.
The competition started with The Belligerents, a band featuring Tycho Manson ( Torys); Jeanette Lee (in-house CanWest); Tom Melville ( Ministry of Municipal Affairs); Kevin Croucher and Pete Stanley ( ringers).
Then came the Bingo Balls with Dave Daniels, Jennifer White, Andrew Staniland, Graham Mackey ( all Miller Thomson or spouses of), Marci Jameson (Borden Ladner Gervais) and Mike Daniels ( ringer).
The third set was the Rt. Honorable Jake & the High Court of Soul featuring Jake Bullen, Jason Klein, John McGowan, Erin Finlay, Tilly Gray (Cassels Brock & Blackwell), Jeff Buller and Mark Masur ( ringer, ringer).
Finally, the Lex Pistols with Richard Searles (Mintz & Partners), Jim Robbins, Cyndi Searles ( Cavalluzzo Hayes), Mark Dobis, Paul Ross and Seth (ringer, ringer, and a ringer so well known he needs no last name).
You can stack those up against Mr. Flex’s remarks, in no particular order.
“ It’s going to be a long night.”
“Brilliant song selection, just brilliant.”
“Great guitar. Too bad they don’t have a vocalist.”
“They have musicality.”
“ At least someone in this group’s kind of moving their hips.”
We can report the Lex Pistols, walked off with the Lexpert Cup in a 2- 1 decision. The real winner was Canfar, which pulled in over $200,000 from the fundraiser. It helped that people paid for the liquor. The hangovers were free.
BUZZING OVER BCE AND BILLING FOR LUNCH
Speaking of beauty, it seems BCE has taken a page out of the banks’ books and recently staged a beauty contest for legal providers. Among other things, Martine Turcotte was undoubtedly looking to cut down on the number of law firms the company uses and perhaps slim the spend. We can’t tell you much, but we can tell you this much. People are talking about the fact one major with a strong Montreal presence didn’t make the cut in at least one major category.
There are rumblings the same firm has managed to seriously annoy another Quebec Inc. client that was unhappy about some aspect of its legal bills. Someone from the company invited a senior player at the law firm out to lunch to discuss the problem. The two lunched, they discussed it — and the senior player apparently billed for the time. The client was not amused. Are they angry enough to bail? Time will tell. But we won’t. So don’t bother asking. RICE OFFERS MEA CULPA AND ISSUES WARNING
People are talking about the candour and grace of Bill Rice, former managing partner of Bennett Jones who became chairman of the Alberta Securities Commission earlier this year. Mr. Rice landed the new job a few months after being replaced by Hugh MacKinnon as the firm’s national managing partner.
Mr. Rice was part of a panel discussion on hiring and retention at the Canadian Bar Association national conference on law firm leadership in Halifax recently. The talk strayed into how he dealt with things after his five years as managing partner were up. To sum it up: badly.
Mr. Rice admitted to getting a jolt when he stopped receiving the daily numbers (hours billed and receipts). He said he didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be once he was no longer in management. One day he was privy to everything, the next day, he was privy to nothing at all.
He told the audience of about 150 people that he didn’t react as well as he might have liked, and admitted that for a short time he actually felt that his partners didn’t trust him anymore. He also said he suspects that he started taking out his feelings of disenfranchisement on people at Bennett Jones that he had worked closely with over the years — and, if so, he regrets that.
Mr. Rice had a warning for managing partners: Spend more than two or three years in that job and it’s doubtful you will ever be able to return to practice. Spend five years and it’s no longer possible. ( Oh dear. We know one former managing partner type now, um, in transition who must be hoping that’s not so.)
Among those spotted at the conference were Scott Jolliffe, national managing partner of Gowlings, Gary Luftspring, managing partner of Goodman and Carr, Wylie Spicer, managing partner of McInnes Cooper, David Malach, managing partner of Aird & Berlis. McCarthy Tétrault, as befits a large firm, had a large delegation including Marc-Andre Blanchard, Kirby Chown, Gord Thompson and longtime marketing director Lise Monette ( well, she was only just with McCarthys. She quit right after coming back to join Ogilvy Renault.)
Back to Mr. Rice, it was interesting to note who was not there for his mea culpa — anyone from Bennett Jones. But we hear he is planning some form of reprise this weekend in front of all his former partners at a retreat in Phoenix, where the firm is planning to honour his long contribution.
Good on him. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, life is too short to be little. But then again, no one could call Mr. Rice little (he’s taller than Ms. Glebova). Not in any sense of the word.