GENERAL COUNSEL AWARDS
Deloitte’s Fredeen takes top honours while Telus’ Mercier honoured for lifetime achievement.
Ken Fredeen has seen a lot in his 30 years of practising law in-house, including the past 18 years as general counsel and secretary to the board at Canada’s largest professional services firm, Deloitte LLP.
He’s overseen groundbreaking litigation related to auditor negligence with the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Livent Inc., which narrowed instances where auditors can be found liable and dramatically slashed a damages award by almost $45 million. He has also helped negotiate important mergers and built governance structures that has allowed Deloitte grow to almost 1,000 partners.
However, what Fredeen — this year’s recipient of the General Counsel of the Year award — is most proud of is building the next generation of legal leaders and working to make the legal profession more diverse.
The nominees included Daniel Desjardins, senior vicepresident, general counsel, Bombardier Inc.; Kikelomo Lawal, chief legal officer Interac Corp.; Mary Martin, executive vice-president, general counsel, Metrolinx; Joel Schuster, chief legal officer, senior vice-president, Avigilon Corp.; Jennifer Tindale, chief legal officer, Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.
Fredeen has been at the vanguard of the movement to make legal opportunities more accessible for minorities, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ community, helping found Leaders for Legal Diversity and Inclusion, a group of more than 120 legal professionals that undertake to practice diversity and inclusion in their hiring and promotion practices.
He also helped formed his firm’s diversity council in 2006, and was the executive sponsor for the firm’s LGBTQ resources group, formed in 2007, and the accessibility group, formed in 2014. He says “lawyers and general counsel have a great role to play in building not only an inclusive legal profession, but a more inclusive business environment.”
“We can play a role … in creating positive change,” he observes, adding that “we have this very privileged place we are in and we need to use it to create a more inclusive environment.”
Not bad for a self-described straight, white male from Saskatchewan, who got his start working at a small law firm in Prince George, B.C. before moving to Calgary’s energy patch, where he practised at Dome Petroleum. He joined Canadian Airlines in 1987 and was there until he left for Deloitte.
Fredeen’s nomination is a reflection of his management style, with lawyers from around the country heaping accolades on him for his mentorship style and his desire to see his people succeed.
“We don’t always understand the impact we have on people,” says Fredeen, who took over the legal department at Deloitte in 2000, a time of great stress among the large consulting firms.
Consulting giant Arthur Andersen has just collapsed and the Enron and WorldCom scandals were dominating the headlines and the attention of politicians and regulators, leading to such laws as Sarbanes-Oxley and new auditor oversight rules.
He helped the firm come to grips with the new regulatory environment and focused on governance structures that would allow Deloitte to flourish.
“I believe that governance in a partnership is critical to success and to being a sustainable business,” says Fredeen.
Unlike most partnerships, Deloitte operates akin to a traditional corporate model led by managing partner and CEO Frank Vettese and chairman Glenn Ives. The firm has regional managing partners, who oversee local operations.
It’s a model now emulated by national law firms.
However, there is one twist, Deloitte has also added three independent directors to its board, which is unusual for a partnership. Fredeen says the model is about making “your governance more effective and efficient.”
Today, Deloitte LLP, one of Canada’s oldest organizations tracing its roots back to 1858, has 60 offices and more than $2.3 billion in revenue and Fredeen has been at the centre of much of that growth.
He has a simple approach to the role of a general counsel. “Our job is to protect the brand and reputations of the organizations we work for.”
He likens the role of general counsel to a stealth duck. “If we are doing our jobs, people don’t understand that we exist,” he says, adding, however, that beneath the surface, the feet are furiously paddling.
“A big part of what we do are things that are never heard about.
“Our role is around being a gatekeeper and doing the right thing from an ethical and business standpoint.”
Fredeen, who leads a team of more than 25 legal professionals, is also big on career development and believes in training people to leave.
“I don’t want somebody working for me who can’t get a job somewhere else," he says.
He has seen four of his subordinates move on to their own jobs as general counsel in other organizations, something in which he takes great pride.
He is also big on mentorship. “I am hugely vested in all of the people that I mentor, coach and sponsor within the firm and outside,” Fredeen explains.
“What I want at the end of the day on my team is an engaged group of inclusive leaders, because then we are unstoppable.”