Why lawyers will come out on top
A new poll came out last week with some stunning results. We used to think that lawyers were among the least loved professions. It seems to be different over in Great Britain, where at least 52 per cent of the people, really, really like lawyers.
I refer, of course, to the results of the Brexit vote. The next couple of years are manna sent from heaven for law firms that have clients with ties to Europe. No matter what the Brexit looks like, it’s going to involve a drastic overhaul of laws, regulations, directives and treaties.
“As the results came in Friday morning, I was thinking, the only people who benefit from this are lawyers,” said John Boscariol, a trade lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto. “In any time of uncertainty, that’s often the case.”
That’s a fair point. Even if we don’t know what the relationship between the U. K. and the EU will look like in the future, we know that a big transformation is coming. Markets are not keen on the uncertainty. The pound has dropped and equity markets are volatile. But the legal future isn’t completely opaque. There are some likely scenarios for the future, and that’s what lawyers are able to discuss.
“Our advice to clients right now is stay calm,” Boscariol said. “In the short term, there is going to be disruption, and we’re going to have to figure out ways to deal with those disruptions strategically. But don’t panic.”
The British were offered two clear choices last Thursday: Leave or Remain. While the political choice on the ballot paper was binary, the legal outcome isn’t. Not every European country is in the EU, yet most of them have figured out a way to do business together. Lawyers look to those models as precedents for the future EU-U.K. relationship.
On Monday, global law f i rm Baker & McKenzie invited clients to a special meeting at Canadian House in London’s Trafalgar Square. Kevin Coon, managing partner of the firm in Canada, and one of the firm’s newest partners, former cabinet minister Peter MacKay, led discussions on how the Brexit vote results will impact Canada’s economic, dip- lomatic and trade relations with the U.K. and EU.
For clients globally, Baker has put together a nifty chart that explores five model scenarios, each based on a current relationship. The most extreme model is a clear break, though WTO rules would still provide a minimum framework for trade rules. The “Norway” and “Swiss” models would involve high degrees of market access, though the U. K. would have no say in the EU formulation of groupwide trading policies.
( You can find that chart in the online version of this story at financialpost.com/legalpost.)
Gowling WLG, which just last year merged with a British law firm, has set up a website called “Brexit Untangled” ( gowlingwlg.com/brexit) to help its clients through the changes ahead. The site provides links to lawyers with expertise in no fewer than 21 legal areas that will be impacted by the transition. The firm also has a link to the webinar in conducted Friday.
None of this ignores what a boon the entire EU project has to have been for lawyers to begin with. There’s been a rush to accuse every Leave voter of being motivated by immigration, and that’s just nuts.
The EU has generated more than its share of ridiculous examples of red tape. Some of last Thursday’s vote has to be chalked up to British frustrations with some regulations that are so silly, only lawyers could love them.
Perhaps the most famous of these is the so- called “Bendy Banana” regulation, which sets rules for the shapes of classes of bananas. Eurocrats are annoyed that anyone would deign question their wisdom on the banana front, and they say it is a “myth to end all myths” that Europe is trying to ban “straight and bendy” bananas. They say the banana rule, Commission Regulation 2257/ 94, merely states that bananas must be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature.” And Europe is not a classless society when it comes to bananas. According to the regulation, Class 1 bananas can have “slight defects of shape” and Class 2 bananas full- on “defects of shape.” So stop smirking, all you Euro-sceptic banana doubters.
Still, interpreting ridiculous regulations for clients is one thing. Advising clients on how to prepare for the legal unknown is entirely different.
There is a lot of advice to come, and it will likely involve a lot more creativity and analysis than studying the curvature of bananas.
Britain, the lawyers of the world thank you.